Light Work & Concrete

[Ulu]

I've had this mini streetlamp in a box in my garage for some 10 years, and while I'd installed the matching coach lamps on our house in 2009, I've successfully avoided putting up the lamp all these years.

 

The truth is that I just didn't want to dig the footing and trench for the wiring & I didn't want to mix concrete. I don't enjoy mixing concrete , but we have hardpan under the surface soil. Digging hardpan is even tougher. You need a pick and a digging bar, and some water. Lots of soaking is required, because the water won't penetrate the clay in the soil much.

 

I used this thing I brazed together to water my tree roots. With it, and some water pressure, I can generally blast a 1" hole about 4' deep in a few minutes. The hardpan was broken up here with dynamite a century ago, and so some places have a considerable thickness of hardpan, and sometimes there's none. Where there's none, we have silty sand which is easy to dig once damp.

 

 

But the hardpan isn't & turns a small trench into a lot of work.

 

Here's the excavation & the cable laid (layed?)

 

 

The formwork was just 2x4's, a 3/4" particle board, and some 18 Ga steel flashing.

 

 

I bent the rebar with a conduit bender & a vise. For #3 (3/8" dia) this worked OK.

 

 

Here's the reinforcing cage, all bent from #3 rebar. I added some long dowels welded to the shorty anchor bolts that come with the kit. the triangular template is threaded & kept the bolts perfectly spaced. I wired the ends up to the cage to get them plumb too.

 

 

I mixed 4.5 80lb sacks by hand in a bucket with a mason's trowel. This part was a killer, as once started you cannot stop. Not in this weather. It was anywhere from 80~100+F the whole time I was doing this, except the electrical work done at night. You take any break & that stuff gets hard.

 

A selfie, shot with one hand as I fake-trowel with the other:

 

 

The finished footing, waiting to cure 3 days.

 

 

 

Here's the lamp assembled and on the pedestal. I couldn't tamp the concrete well enough, as I mixed it a little too dry for the weather. Anyhow there was some minor porosity in the surface when I removed the forms, so I decided to stucco the pedestal to match my house.

 

I put on 2 coats of acrylic-fortified stucco & it's too white to match the house but otherwise looks OK & is plenty strong.

 

 

 

Anyhow, I have learned my lesson. I don't want to do any more masonry, or at least not in July. Way too hot here for top notch concrete work. OK, there's probably still some masonry in my future, but I'm going to do it in the winter. LOL

Edited June 15, 2015 by Ulu

[Todd B]

Looks very nice, you wont be able to sleep at night with all those bulbs

[linus6948]

Very nice job, looks really great, I will not show this to my Wife.....

[Ulu]

Thanks, guys. My wife is already digging the whole front "garden" up to lay more concrete.  

 

@Todd B: My bedroom is on the opposite side of the house, but I may be keeping the neighbors awake.

 

My wife immediately suggested smaller bulbs though I like these. With the coach lamps I have six 60 watt bulbs =360 watts; but they're LEDs and only use about 100 watts total, so it's a lot of light for the cost.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Ulu

[Don Coatney]

Light work and concrete is an oxymoron.

[Ulu]

I couldn't resist the cheap pun...

[Ulu]

Well most of what you see in the photo of the garden above is removed & I've dug most of it up & re-worked the sprinkler system. I laid out the slab last night & we're getting some estimates for someone else to level, form it & pour the concrete.

 

Aside from the lamp, the rose bush & the cistern, it's all bare dirt now.