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I finally had a weekend with good weather, some free time and a clear idea of what needed to be done with the pit. Unfortunately I had no idea how to do it or what stuff I needed.  After this weekend, the truck can probably find Home Depot without me now.

Home Depot Trip #1

Bolts and boards and masonry bits - After getting all of the concrete brick in the hole a couple of weekends ago, I had to figure out how to attach the lid onto the concrete.  I decided to add attach it with a couple of anchor bolts.  Seemed simple enough: drill a hole into the concrete with a masonry bit, place the bolts into the holes, drill out the 2×4′s to line up with the bolts and a couple of quick turns of the socket wrench and I’m done.

Masonry bit manufacturers lie.  The packages say things like “Drill holes through brick and concrete with ease,” or “Super-duper-triple-awesome carbonite-tungsten-stainless blade stays sharp 32.1 times longer.” (Longer than what?  Cooked fettuccine?)  As you may be able to tell, I’m a bit scarred from my experience.  I loaded up the drill bit, and I drilled and drilled and drilled until the blade was glowing hot and I had to let the drill cool down.  Blowing away the dust from the concrete, I found a dent (not really a hole) about 1/8″ deep.  This was going to take a while since the bolts needed to be 2 ½ inches into the concrete.  And I needed 5 of them.  I’ll spare you all of the cursing and cussing, but finally I got it done and attached a couple of 2x4s to the pit:

Home Depot Trip #2, #3, #4

Lumber, screws and screws and ….. After careful deliberation, I decided against the big boulder in the backyard look.  OK, I didn’t deliberate carefully.  I didn’t even deliberate un-carefully.  I had a vision in my head and it was full steam ahead, damn the (sewage) torpedoes.   I was going to put a wooden, hinged cover and that was that.  Now all I had to do was figure out how.

I decided to make a “mini” fence gate.   A simple square with a z-brace in the middle.  Piece of cake, there had to be 100 how-to’s on the web and heck, I could probably figure it out without the use of the all-knowing Internets.  As usual, the devil was in the details.   I made the decision (mistake?) to build the frame out of 2x4s laid flat.  Back to The Depot for the 2x4s.   I made all the cuts, put everything on the flat concrete in the carport and squared it all up.  Looking good!  Now all I had to do was attach them all together, and… oh, shoot, how was I going to attach them together?

Back to Home Depot.   Wandering around the fencing and decking sections I came across some lag screws meant for decking.  Surely these would work!  I grabbed a package of 4″ screws and headed toward the checkout.  Wait!  I needed something to tack the frame together while I put the bolts in.  Smart move, I think to myself, saved a trip back here!

Yeah right,  I was neither smart nor did I save myself another trip.  4″ screws.  4 inch screws.  I was using 2x4s and had to put the bolt through the full width of the board.  Now I think my thought process broke down based on my in-depth knowledge of lumber products.  2x4s aren’t  really 2″ x 4″ .  They’re less than that.  How much less?  Eh, who knows, but “Big Lumber” keeps trying to squeeze more profit out of the same piece of wood, so it’s probably like 1″ x 2″ by now.   Ummm, no.  Turns out it’s only about ¼” smaller than 2″ x 4″.  Which means my 4″ lag screws wouldn’t be cutting it.

So, Home Depot, here I come again!  A box of 5″ lag screws later and I was in business.  ($14 for 12 screws?  Really?  I’m going to melt the leftovers later and fish out the gold that must be in them somewhere).

Here’s the detail picture of how I put it all together…

Home Depot Trip #5

A couple of cedar pickets…. I did pick up some galvanized hinges in one of my many trips earlier.  Which trip?  Only the receipts know for sure, as they were starting to blend together by now.  I finagled the hinges on to both the ‘gate top’ and the attach boards and it actually worked out pretty good!  Is it possible I could finish this darn thing?  It was clear sailing from here on in.  All I had to do was put a bunch of boards on top and … boards.  Yeah, I didn’t have those.  Put the truck on autopilot and take a nap, since it’s back to the “Big Orange”.    3 6′ cedar fence posts later and I was good to go.

Home Depot Trip #6

More screws?  Really?  – Home stretch.  This is it.  Make a few cuts, attach the boards, fill in a bit more dirt, and it’s Sayonara,  Sewer Pit!   Cuts were made, boards were placed on top for fit check, things were moving.  Just needed to screw it on and I’m good to go.  In case you didn’t see this one coming in the first word of the paragraph, I’ll just out and say it again:  No screws.  Oh I have deck screws that would work perfectly.  If only they were about 2 inches shorter.  Back in the truck, yadda yadda yadda, and back home with the correct screws.

I managed to get the top screwed on, and only had to cut it to finish up, but seeing as I managed to use most of the daylight driving back and forth to home depot, I had to wait until the next morning to finish it up.  But it was almost done.

DONE!

At long last, I won’t need to think about the pit in the backyard filling up with sewage or a beautiful green oasis of toxic waste in the dusty expanse of the backyard.  OK, OK, it’s not completely done – I’m going to put a few plants around it to stabilize the soil and camouflage it a bit.  Also, the trained eye may notice it appears a bit cock-eyed.  Well, the pit itself wasn’t square to the house, so I ‘fixed’ that by squaring up the to planks.  Another excellent reason to surround it with some plants.

Tags: DIY, homeowner, sewer pump, wood

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 10:01 am and is filed under Joys of the Homeowner.