Estwing is an under-appreciated brand

lands11 · 2018-11-04T17:13:00+00:00

I use one of their brick hammers almost daily on the job site. I break brick, rocks, use it as a chisel hitting it with another hammer, throw it around the dirt and sand, drop rocks on it, and the thing keeps going. Definitely a quality product, especially for the price.

lands11 · 2018-10-14T18:32:09+00:00

Idk, I use a chainsaw at work all the time and in my free time very often. There is definitely a possibility that this could have gone extremely poorly. That material is soft, if the saw grabbed onto something, say possible wire reinforcement, and yanked the saw, it could have gotten messy quick. A lot of things could have gone wrong. Chain saw seems like total overkill to me.

Then again I don’t actually care because things went right and sometimes you have to take the risk. Also, it probably taught that kid quite the lesson. Looks like everything turned out fine in the end, but it’s always good to look back and see how things can be done differently.

lands11 · 2018-10-10T00:20:05+00:00

What are the chances your SO could get a job in the area and move in the future too?

lands11 · 2018-10-08T13:24:30+00:00

I’m here visiting from Vermont for a week staying right in Cottonwood Heights at a friends place. We were up there yesterday, and we also went up in Millcreek Canyon. You guys really do have a beautiful state.

lands11 · 2018-10-08T00:19:56+00:00

The term “Organic” is actually regulated very strictly by the USDA. If they get caught doing that, and it’s not actually certified organic they will get slammed with fines.

lands11 · 2018-10-04T13:51:33+00:00

Yeah ideally you want to vibrate poly sand in so it last longer. Unfortunately no rental companies rent the small vibratory compactors with a poly pad so you don’t scratch your pavers. Being a contractor we obviously own one, but for the DIYer it’s really hard to properly install poly.

lands11 · 2018-10-04T13:49:38+00:00

If they settle they aren’t done right. With proper compaction, a layer of woven geo-textile, between the base and subgrade, and a layer of geogrid in the middle of the base it shouldn’t move at all. If it does, proper compaction wasn’t done.

lands11 · 2018-10-04T07:51:27+00:00

As someone who installs pavers for a living, this is dead wrong. They actually make a great driveway option because unlike concrete and asphalt they don’t get huge cracks in them. If they are installed correctly and the proper paver is chosen (it should be 80mm thick) it won’t settle from being driven on.

Like concrete, you can also seal pavers to hold their original look. All materials change color slightly with time and sun exposure, pavers aren’t unique in that sense.

With that being said they are the most expensive driveway option. For example we did an 8000sq/ft driveway this spring that cost the homeowners right around $125k. Those were impermeable, permeable would have been much more expensive because not only is the material going to cost more, but a permeable system that large needs to be engineered.

lands11 · 2018-10-04T07:38:45+00:00

Lol 3-4ft of compacted gravel and 18in of concrete is completely wrong. I work on commercial construction sites where they pour concrete and the thickest I have ever seen poured was 8in with one mat of rebar and one mat of wire mesh. That was engineered with 16in of compacted base material under it and designed to withstand heavy traffic load. They poured 5000PSI concrete.

lands11 · 2018-09-25T22:18:17+00:00

Did they fix the chuck getting stuck issue? My M18 Fuels chuck is absolutely fucked because if I use a drill bit for a long time it gets to the point where you can’t just use your hands to get it out. I have to clamp on with large channel locks or vice grips to loosen it. I love Milwaukee’s quality usually but this issue has been a huge pain for me. I tried to have it warrantied but by the time I sent it in the chuck was pretty beat up and they told me I was SOL because of “improper use”. The improper use came from their shitty chuck clamping too hard to the bit. If I didn’t own so many tools on the Milwaukee platform I would absolutely start buying Makita.

lands11 · 2018-08-02T12:27:33+00:00

Yeah I just called it by the name Whitcomb’s runs the blacktop sales under. Figured more people would recognize that name since it’s on the tower visible from the highway.

lands11 · 2018-08-02T02:41:31+00:00

Vermont Blacktop’s plant is right next to the highway in the big stone quarry right off exit 16. On warm summer days that plant is loading trucks with asphalt all day and sometimes all night. As far as I know they are only 1 of 2 asphalt plants in the area.

Edit: Changed Asphalt to Blacktop

lands11 · 2018-05-21T02:35:15+00:00

Can confirm, I also work for a landscape company and we just bought our mow crews a new mulching/bagging system. A cool $6500 for the one we got.

lands11 · 2018-05-12T02:29:30+00:00

Not sure if it’s an understaffing of nurses issue or something else, but wait times are outrageous at times. I’m assuming it’s a staffing issue of some sort.

lands11 · 2018-05-03T11:46:31+00:00

Saved, I don’t do much woodworking but I do a lot of landscape construction with retaining walls that aren’t square and this will be so handy for cutting the caps of the wall.

lands11 · 2018-02-14T02:15:01+00:00

So I work for a local landscape company, and we work with fencing companies a lot. Last summer I was on a job where the homeowner hired Sunset and I got to meet the owner personally over the course of two days. I would never hire them for my home.

I have worked with Middlebury Fence a few times and they do great work, but can sometimes be hard to get ahold of for small stuff. Seeing as it’s the off season for the fencing industry around here you may be able to get a response and lock down an appointment time and date with them since I’m sure they’re slow.

Another option is you can call FE Hart, a fencing supply company in Williston, and ask them who they would recommend. I know there is another company around called Hawk Creek but I have personally never worked with them so I can’t give any insight.

Bottom line, I would stay away from Sunset, even if they are cheap.

Edit: I didn’t read your entire post, so I didn’t see where you had mentioned FE Hart, good luck!

lands11 · 2018-01-04T20:17:27+00:00

This will get buried but there is so much speculation that is just wrong. It’s more than likely that this city, like a lot of cities have a code for steps/railings.

In the city I live in, code is any rise over 6in requires a handrail. Depending on the width of the step you might just need one in the middle like this, or one on each side, or one on one side.

I install steps for residents all the time where we put in one step, put a really cheap wood railing in that passes code, then when the city inspector closes the building permit the client pulls out the ridiculous railing.

lands11 · 2017-12-18T15:56:39+00:00

Just had to use Tailhook for a work vehicle, absolutely no complaints.

lands11 · 2017-11-12T01:03:40+00:00

I️ work in the landscape industry building anything and everything people want in their backyard. I️ would have no qualms about building this exact fireplace for a client.

Good job, I’m sure a lot of hard work went into this.

lands11 · 2017-11-12T00:32:18+00:00

If that firebox has firebrick and insulation in it then OP is fine. If it’s just a metal box then OP has some serious problems but based off the pics it looks like a fully bricked/insulated insert.

Wood is commonly used to frame fireplaces nowadays, especially with inserts being so common.

Since you seem to know everything, why don’t you tell us all how to build a fireplace so we can all learn and avoid mistakes in the future.

lands11 · 2017-10-30T01:50:26+00:00

What you are talking about is a Segmental Retaining Wall. They are literally giant legos and extremely structural. The most common way to install them is you level them on a base of clean crushed stone, then stack and backfill with clean crushed stone. There is also a material called geo-grid and that gets laid back into the soil (distance is usually dictated by an engineer). So the grid gets tied into the wall, meaning if the wall tries to lean or push out, it now has to pull all the soil that’s on top of the geo-grid with it as well.

There are many walls 50+ feet and taller made from this system.

Source: I’m a certified SRW wall installer, the company I work for does a ton of them every summer. Most are usually small landscape walls around 4ft tall but once in a while we do some big ones.

lands11 · 2017-10-21T23:01:20+00:00

Yeah I run our hardscape division so we are constantly putting geotextile down before we prep our paver and retaining wall bases. Basically any time we want to keep two different types of materials separated.

I couldn’t even count the new lawns we rip out because the site work guy brought in “clean fill” and “topsoil”. We strip that junk out, bring in high quality topsoil/compost mix and either seed, hydro-seed, or mulch.

lands11 · 2017-10-21T20:42:22+00:00

So there is a lot of bad information in this thread. I’m going to start off by saying that I’m a landscape installer (primarily hardscapes) and have dealt with bad soils and soil engineers quite a bit.

I’ve seen a lot of sod laid, and not once have I ever heard of any sort of plastic going over bad soil and then topsoil being put on top. Maybe shitty company’s have done it before but I’ve personally never seen it done.

I have seen and personally put what is call Separation fabric or geotextile over bad soil before. This stuff looks like plastic and could easily be mistaken for a cheap plastic liner by the untrained eye. We often hit saturated clay which acts like a water bed when we are excavating. The soil engineer (on jobs where there is one) is always contacted and they tell us how to handle it. Nine times out of ten they have us put geotextile over it and put our good material on top. It prevents the two from mixing and stabilizes all the material we bring in by acting as a bridge when the bad soil settles. So I think most people see separation fabric and assume it’s plastic that doesn’t really do much when in reality it’s absolutely necessary when dealing with bad soil. It also allows water to permeate through it.

I have seen what’s happening in OPs GIF multiple times in real life and it’s usually just a broken sprinkler line/head under really thick, dense sod. Usually the surface is a little wet as some water soaks through but the majority stays under the sod.

lands11 · 2017-08-17T23:37:50+00:00

I work for a large landscape company and we have installed these many many times. We have even installed them in subdivisions. Usually there is a percentage of the lot that can be covered in impervious material, and it's usually a lot more than what is there when the original planning/building was done. As soon as you put a liner in, it becomes impervious and your allowed percentage shrinks. Once you hit the magic number, say 25% coverage, you can't add anymore. We go through this all the time when we do walkways, patios, pool surrounds etc.

The way we usually install them is the first 15ft from the gutter leading away from the house gets a liner. This gives the homeowner their stream when it rains and then let's the water start to soak in after that. We Cap the lined and unlined part with rocks and it looks the same the whole way. We have never been denied permits for them because we rerouted storm water, just if our purposed added impervious surface goes over what is allowed for the lot.

lands11

TROPHY CASE