McHugh/Gant Hangar House

Day 474 - Barrier Footings

Monday, October 2 -- Good grief, it is October. Still trying to get to final.

Before we start with today's story, first a quiz for our loyal hangarhouse groupies...

What long-time construction fixture is missing in the following pictures? (Answer at the bottom of this page.)

The major project today was setting the footings for the safety barrier along the retaining wall. The fence and retaining wall are on county property. The fence is required in our airport "use" permit. Today, we got the footing concrete and rebar set...

The bottom of each rebar piece had to be bent into an "L" shape. To do the bend, you use a very primitive bar bending device. The first pieces were impossible to bend and would break in the bender. It turns out that the rebar was too strong of rebar. We downgraded the rebar we were using and all continued smoothly...

Ken and Dave spent the afternoon surveying and planning the hangar's concrete apron. Nothing is easy. It turns out that the top of the hangar concrete is 10" higher than the taxiway. The drainage plan that the county wants us to install will not work. Calls are in to the airport department and we will have to work out a new plan before we can continue...

John got only a little "tile time" in today. Here is the third layer of picture framing around the range recess...

Kelli ran hot water system tests, got a service call into the appliance store since we can't get the washing machine to start, and started sanding the Ipé deck railing cap. The cap is turning out very smooth and the sanding seems to bring some of the natural oils to the surface.

Mike flew back to the Bay Area this morning.

This weekend, we rehung three interior doors, ran tests on the hot water recirculation system (we still have some issues,) ran an empty dishwasher load for the first time, fired up the ice maker for the first time, cocktail'd on the deck, and played with the house and deck lighting after dark.

The big "must do" for the weekend was to pull our ski boat for the season. The lake is getting fairly low and the walkway ramp to the slips was removed on Sunday.

Below, Mike gets the boat ready for short trip to the launch ramp...

These pictures show the dropping lake level...

Quiz answer: The port-a-potty :-) After 2+ years, we bid goodbye to "the hole" today.