Thread: Man cave digout

Originally Posted by surfdabbler

Oh, and yes, it even has a half-speed reverse.

Just don't try setting it to intermittent - could be tricky.

Very enterprising!! If its a bit slow when going up the hill it is surely better than having to push the barrow

Tried out the wheelbarrow today. Unfortunately it was not a success. It was quite promising with an empty wheelbarrow on flat ground, but with a barrowload of dirt and a steep hill, it is just nowhere near powerful enough. Oh well, it was a fun experiment. Back to hard work.

We are doing a new pool and alfresco area at the moment where there is no access for anything biger than a 1.5T excavator. We carted out all of our demo with one of these Motorised Wheel Barrow | Carnegie Equipment Hire Melbourne and the boys doing the dig for the pool used one of these Motorised Wheel Barrow | JC Hire that lifted high enough to tip in to a tandem, Only problem is if you are doing your project a bit at a time the repeat cartage costs would be pretty exy.

Tools

Yes, these would be great, but as you said, just not very cost effective for the bit-by-bit nature of the work. The $70 weekend special would be very tempting though - I'd take that! A similar wheelbarrow is $205 per day from my local hire place ($410 for weekend!).

Still digging. Skip number 12 is full and waiting to go at the moment. Meanwhile, I'm up to a stage where I need to start measuring and marking to get the final levels for digging, so I've started setting out string lines and paint markings for the walls and footings. I pulled out my trusty old builders line, which is a bit of string wound around a stick, and a rock tied to the end for plumb. I've been thinking for a while that I would like nice plumb line, so this was the perfect excuse to make something a little better. So here's the result. I bought new line and a plumb-bob from bunnings, and turned up a nice spindle for it to go on. Yesterday I was throwing my old stick over beams, and every throw it would unwind a few extra metres of string that needed to be wound back onto the stick, so on the new spindle, I have added a hook for the line to go through. This stops the line from unwinding when I have to throw the spindle around, and also makes a nice way to store the spindle without it unravelling. So, here is my little break from digging...

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Well, after 14 skips, it’s starting to look like a room! In digging down, I left a ramp to get in and out of the room, and the ramp is the last thing to go. We started on the ramp this afternoon, and hopefully tomorrow will see most of it gone. The footings are done around the sides of the room, and just the ones under the ramp are left. I will be very glad to see the end of this digging! That’s all I want for Christmas.

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There is no reward without labour, your reward will be 3 fold, well done x 10. I bet your really fit now. and the family won't miss the kanga hammer either

Originally Posted by surfdabbler

Well, after 14 skips, it’s starting to look like a room! In digging down, I left a ramp to get in and out of the room, and the ramp is the last thing to go. We started on the ramp this afternoon, and hopefully tomorrow will see most of it gone.

Well done!

So it's now time to invest in a laser level?

I hope you included a largish sump in all your digging.

Curious, how'd the 'electric wheelbarrow' go?

Originally Posted by johnredl

Curious, how'd the 'electric wheelbarrow' go?

The electric wheelbarrow was a non-event I'm sad to say. The wiper motor was around 35W, but I needed something more like 350W of motor to really make it helpful with a full load. Apart from that, it worked really well. I'm sure I can find an alternate use for the motor in a future project. Now, if only I had a nice big project space to work in...

Yep, beg, borrow or steal a laser level use it then sell it but you won't because they are so good. I have a Dewalt but I think most of the Ebay offerings are pretty good, the big deal with laser levels is they get set up and stay the same all day if needed and it saves a LOT of time because the reference is always there. A really handy feature I found is you can use the line as a reference to measure from for cutting timber etc. Dave TTC convinced me when I helped him on a job and I am a total convert now.

Wont show this to the missus. She will try and get me to dig a cellar in the yard.
Got the backhoe there, just pushing s*hit up hill finding the time at the moment. Then theres the issue of getting a conc truck within cooee etc...

Will have to drop by the forum and see how its going. that digging by hand is making me break out in a sweat from here

Originally Posted by jatt

Then theres the issue of getting a conc truck within cooee etc...

They now have an amazing machine, actually has been around for a while, called a concrete pump, as long as you can get a 100 mm diam pipe there, they can put concrete there. So NO excuses.
Kryn