DIY Concrete posts

[johnofgwent]

I spent yesterday digging the allotment and at about 6am woke up, made some coffee and thought that is enough work for the rest of the day.

So, since lockdown I have ....

1) watched the wife and daughter prune the conifers and box that took over the bottom of the garden. But paid for it afterwards because i've had to ...
2) hacked down, chopped up and burned the twenty cubic yards (yes, you heard me, twenty full loads in a one cubic yard incinerator) of bramble, hacked down tree branches, weeds and other shit
3) totally dug out, weeded and mulched over 300 cubic foot of flower border (90 ft long, 3 ft wide, 12-15 inches deep all had to be turned over and weeded along the one side of the garden.
4) chainsawed three trees (two apple trees with brown rot, one god knows what that kusyt kept chucking out side branches)
5) ripped out the pebble pond, and created a new rockery around the stump of that monster tree of above reference
6) replanted the flower border
7) ripped up 450 square foot of rapidly rotting decking
built a new smaller deck from what i could salvage of the old plankling at the bottom of the garden
9) created a raised platform at the bottom of the garden for her indoor's compost bins
10) continued the raised platform to provide a resting site for my (plastic) "potting shed" continuous with above mentioned new deck
11) used the remaining deck bearers to create a new bade for the old greenhouse....

I'm a bit stumped now because every time i open the damn door it buckets down... but what remains is

12) hack the greenhouse out of the current location which is totally over run with brambles
13) work out how to dig up the greenhouse base which was put down by me 20 years ago using techniques i learned from my dad, who learned them from HIS dad. I only recently found out they built dams using those techniques AFTER barnes wallis invented the bouncing bomb. So far I've tried a sledgehammer Thor himself would be proud of and it's not budging the sodding foundations. I'm thinking of calling 617 squadron and seeing if they want a bit of precision bombing practice ... When that is out of the way, all i then have to do is ....

14) buy about two ton of 10mm aggretgate and spread it over where th eold decking was
15) but about 50 400(ish) mm patio slabs to lay in place of the removed decking, once the special order sunburst patio slab kit arrives....
16) dig out the remaining about 200 cubic feet of what was a flower border on the other side of the garden that is a disaster.
17) rake the whole area not patio'd over ready for turf and
18) move the rotary line

I've got about another three weeks before I find out if they want me back or are making me redundant...

oh i forgot

19) dig a bloody great hole six foot long, about two foot wide and six foot deep so that when this is over i can fall in it from the exhaustion...

[Borchester]

You are a star.

I spent yesterday digging the allotment and at about 6am woke up, made some coffee and thought that is enough work for the rest of the day.

What do you do with your drills when they break? I go back to the day when high carbon steel drills were about all that was going, so whenever I muck up a drill I put it to one side, intending to sharpen it later. Which is ridiculous because their is nothing that can be done with masonry drills (or is there?) and every other sort is always available in Poundland. So now I have a bucket with a half hundredweight of drill bits that give a hernia everytime I have to move them but which I can't bring myself to throw away

[Barry]

Cracked it. Took 2 hours of drilling and ruined at least 4 drill bits starting with 4mm and working up to 8mm.

Seven firm screw fixings to support a heavy gate.

[Borchester]

You have probably thought of this but I don't suppose you can build a wooden sleeve around the concrete post and screw whatever has to be screwed into it?

[Barry]

DD will love this trivia if he ever logs in again.

At my son's house  is a 1.45m side passage which currently has the worst botched lean to you've ever seen.
Anyway I'm helping him demolish that and he wants a nice side gate, which I got from B&Q
https://www.diy.com/departments/grange-timber-arch-gate-h-1-8m-w-0-9m/254719_BQ.prd
Today I screwed a 70mm x 35mm piece of timber to the house wall directly opposite a 4" x 4" H section concrete fence post to put the gate up.
Because of the gas meter enclosure I need to hang the gate on another 70 x 35 piece of timber attached to the concrete fence post.
I can't drill the fence post because it has metal reinforcement.
I've seen some postfix metal brackets which might help. I know I need another post to latch the gate and that is in hand!
The electrician let us down today so can't get on with the job. Aaaarggghhhh!