Good point Dave. I doubt I will ever need to pull one in. I could just back up to the door and unload it into the shop. How tall is a typical one car car hauler?

Looked at this one: https://www.trailersplus.com/Oklahom...S2422LC051698/

Overall height is only 9 foot. I do not ever anticipate having to pull in anything bigger. If it is bigger, it will have to go in the other end of the shop, where I have a 13 foot high door.

I would suggest getting one with the "V" front to cut down on wind drag. plus you get extra room for storing the spare tire etc...

I am not planning to buy an enclosed trailer. Just wanted to see if it would fit in my new doorway.

Measured today, and using the two 16 LVL beams I have, I can go 10' 4" without having to remove the old header, which will make this go a lot easier for me. Thanks for the comments.

Promise to add some more updates soon. I am working feverishly to get as much done as possible before Jan. 23. I am having reverse total joint replacement on my left shoulder. Once that one is healed, I need total joint replacement in the right shoulder. Sucks getting old.

Promised more updates on the shop. Not sure how to update this. So much has happened, and thankfully, I changed directions on this. You will see why.

Have to explain the layout of the building. It is 45 feet wide. The East end is square. The West end is not. The South wall runs about 125 feet, and the North wall about 105 feet. So, for you math guys, it is a left trapezoid with one wall perpendicular to the two parallel walls.

I had planned on using just the West end as a two bay work space with one lift and a flat bay area. Would have been about 1400 feet, albeit in a bit of an odd shape.

The floor was already concrete with virtually no cracks, except around the pole I removed making it a clear span area. The flooring just to the east is the original wood floor (building was used for coal storage in the 1920’s). 2 x 12 joists on 16 inch centers with 2 x 6 flooring planks. Previous owner was driving cars on it, so it was plenty strong. But, I wanted to wall off my work shop area so that I could heat it in the winter. I can stand the summer heat, but not the winter cold. The only ventilation for the crawl space was out to the shop area. You can see the crawl space in the first three pics below. First one is looking East from the North end of my work area. The building has no crawl space ventilation on either side. Well, not DESIGNED ventilation; but plenty of air gaps in the tin siding on the North. It was VERY damp under the wood floor. I mean really damp. I bought a bunch of steel grates to place strategically in the floor and was getting ready to wall that area off. Then I got greedy. Wouldn’t MORE shop space be better? Of course it would. So, the next plan was to remove about 1/3 of that wood floor. I planned to concrete it on the same level as the work area, so that I could store welding equipment, gantry crane etc. and be able to roll them over to the work area.

At first, I started pulling nails one at a time. Screw that, get the circular saw, and cut each floor board even with one side of the joist, and just use it as leverage to pull up the floor boards. Fortunately, one of my brothers was able to come over that Saturday and help. After removing about a third of that third of the floor, I noticed something black on the ground under the joists. I poked it with a pry bar, and found it to be a puddle of water. Talk about damp. No, not damp; wet. After removing enough of the flooring and joists that I could access the puddle, I stuck my pry bar all the way in. Didn’t hit bottom. Had my brother hand me a 6 foot piece of conduit; stuck it in. Still didn’t hit bottom. WTH??
We had uncovered a freakin artesian well. Pics below. No wonder it was always so damp under there. Went to Ace and bought a sump pump with float. Pumped it as dry as I could. Two nights later, we got ½ inch of rain. Thought I would go down to the shop and see if there was a couple more feet of water in the well. It was full again, after just ½ inch of rain. I have still not cleaned the well out completely (may find Jimmy Hoffa in there). There are pieces of wood at the bottom that are water logged. No telling what we will find when we finally clean it out. Hoping it was a wishing well. Photos of the well were taken about a week after we removed the flooring on that third. The well is bigger than it looks in pictures. It is 36 inches in diameter.

We have since discovered that this building was NOT the first structure on this site. However, it is apparent, they had no building codes to speak of in 1919, or someone just didn't pay attention. They built this building right over an existing well. I have discovered remnants of at least two footings from previous structures. We are less than 60 yards from the rail road tracks, which have been in the same place since before the land run in 1889. So, this may have been used as a spring fed water source for the trains. More to come.

Wow, that's cool!! I hope you get somebody local to metal detect the dirt before you pour concrete. You never know!

We dug up whiskey bottles, old Coke and Pepsi Bottles, a steam kettle, 5 pistons (approx 5 inch bore) and myriad other odds and ends. Did not sweep with a metal detector.

That is insane! Do you think your building had been previously configured to allow access to that well? I can't imagine they would have just built a new structure over that.

Pretty sure they build right over it. Those joists are typical 2 x 12 from 1919. Slightly thicker than a modern 2 x 12. Very straight grain Douglas Fir with zero knots. I will take a pic of an end cut. You would not believe how many rings per inch. Old growth wood. You would think they would all be rotted from that moist environment, but there was only about 5 % rot.

Those very tight and small rings are defiantly 1st growth timber. I have a few scraps of 1st growth doug fir 4x6's. Interesting.
Mike

What a treasure trove of coolness! I know this throws a wrench into progress, but what a cool side story for your neat building. Keep us posted Lynn!!!

You know, of course, that every horror movie starts with the finding of one of these wells...


I love these kinds of movies!

Keep posting updates...

if you aren't too scared !

Be cautiuos Lynn, Nessie might be in that well....:naughty:

Very cool Lynn...I’m tired just thinking about all of that work!

Your own a well!?!??!!:eek2: Man, I’m jealous! “Hey Lynn, what’s going over there?” “Oh, nothing. Just drinking some water out of my OWN WELL!!l”:eek2::eek2::eek2::smile::smile: Not many people can say that!

Do you think this could be the Money Pit they’ve been looking for on Oak Island but can’t seem to find? Maybe they just need to look further South!:bs:

Progress forward!!!

Cheers:beers:
Dave

The train tracks directly beside the building were in all likely hood a siding not the main line.
Having had rail service and having looked at buildings from the early 1900's with rail, they were not directly on the main line, there were switches and siding tracks.

FWIW
https://www.okc.gov/departments/util...-water-history

OKC Water history... after the LAND RUN in 1889 there was ONE WELL and you had to bring your own bucket.
The town purchased 14 wells and pipes in 1908 but they went dry in the summer... so they started planning the first lake in 1910 and opened in 1919.

May have been part of the original water system... or just a private well.

PERSONALLY I think the whole thing is cooler than the other side of the pillow... I just love old brick buildings.

I am going to try and slowly bring this thread up to date. Most pictures were taken with my phone or Sherri's phone, so I spent some time last weekend transferring to my computer. I think the last picture I posted was of the newly discovered well.

I had already shown where I broke out some of the old concrete which had no rebar, poured new pads with 5/8 rebar every foot it two directions, and had to fill in the massive crater from when I removed a support post. Seems like a lifetime ago when we took out the post and put in two 28 foot long LVL timbers to create a clean clear span work area. What caused the crater? The concrete under the post was 18 inches thick. Even without rebar, it was pretty stout. I broke it down as far as I could with a 10 pound slege. Had to pull the last chunk out with my gantry crane. Here it is in the back of my El Camino. I am guessing 1200 pounds, give or take.

I ended up hoisting it out of the El Camino, then winching it up onto my trailer to haul to the free dirt and rock dump.

You can see from the first picture that we removed about 1/3 of the wood flooring. I took no steps to salvage any of the flooring planks. The nails were really long, hard, and partially rusty from the moist environment. So, I just sawed down the joist lines creating 16 inch boards out of that 100 year old 2 x 6 douglas fir flooring which had no knots. I felt bad throwing it all away, but pulling nails one at a time was just too time consuming. We removed that first third of flooring and the underlying joists in less than a day.

Originally, I was just going to remove that one third, build a wall, and leave the rest. But, when I found the well, it was too close to where I needed the wall. We decided to remove it all, and concrete the whole area, creating additional work spaces.

I have some great friends here in Guthrie that REALLY wanted the flooring. They are restoring an old barn. You cannot find wood like this anywhere at any price. No knots, very heavy, with as many as 40 rings to an inch. I told them I had a couple of young bucks who work cheap on Sundays, and my friends agree to pay them to pull it out, one nail at a time. Took them three sundays to get it all. You can see the progress after one Sunday. Those 2 x 12 joists are still in place in the middle third section. Set my progress back three weeks, but I was glad to see the wood get repurposed.

For some reason, when I transfer photos from my phone to the computer, they end up flipped 90 degrees. Even when I flip and save they still come out wrong, so I apologize if you have to lean your head hard to the left to see the pics.

What do you know, the pics stayed right side up.

And James is correct. The RR tracks that are just a foot behind our building are part of a spur that came off the main tracks. The main train tracks are still in the same place today as they were in the 1800's. Even the depot is still there. Very cool old building that a young couple is renovating. One of the best steak houses in the State is now in that depot.

There is still a spur that operates a few hundred miles to the South. That is where the local lumber yard has the train bring in lumber.

How are you going to seal up the well Lynn ? The floor joists are awesome.

Mike

After getting the flooring removed (finally) I started dragging dirt out with my little tractor.
That's when this happened.
https://www.yenko.net/forum/showthread.php?t=154656

I got to split my first tractor. Actually, went pretty well with a crain and a floor jack. Easier than pulling a car transmission to replace a clutch.

BTW, tractor has performed flawlessly since. Good thing; we really needed it in the next chapter.

Very cool feature, that well. A local restaurant here was doing renovations a few years back and they found an old convict-built well under the floor. Owner decided to make a feature of it, so they installed lighting down the well-shaft and put a load-bearing glass lid over it. Always draws newcomers and regulars alike for a peek down there.

Mezzanine
 

Going to back up just a bit here. When we got the building, there was a large mezzanine that was open on two sides and had this large sliding red wood door. We removed the door (I saved it and all of the antique hardware because it looks really cool) and dismantled the whole mezzanine. It was a nasty dirty job. I looked like Al Jolson in black face when we were done. Didn't think I would ever get cleaned up. At least we got it done in one day.

You can see the sliding door in one pic and just the lower part of the mezzanine in the other.

I was undecided on what to do. At first I was just going to wall off that lower level and use it as my work space. Here I am shoring up some of the floor supports. The floor joists were in pretty good shape, but the stone suppors (mostly sand stone) had deteriorated over time, allowing them to sag quite a bit.

Fortunately, I decided to remove part of the wood flooring.

That brings us up to speed to March of 2019. That is when we removed the first third and discovered the well.

Doing it right Lynn! Groty work.....someone’s got to do it!!!!:wink:

Flood waters
 

The next two months were really interesting. I was starting to question my sanity for getting into this project. It there is an artesian well that fills up after just ½ inch of rain, that means there is a LOT of ground water. Pouring concrete over swampy land is a disaster waiting to happen. It gets worse. May was one of the wettest months in Guthrie history. Fortunately, our building was just above the area that flooded. We are just East of the RR tracks, close to the train depot. The depot and our building were safe. Everything West of the tracks flooded. Some buildings had 4 feet of water.

My warehouse is less than 100 feet from the RR tracks. These pics were taken from just the other side of the RR tracks, so about 125 feet from our warehouse.

All the rain didn’t help us at all. We ended up with standing water everywhere in that floor. Oddly, the lower floor that was already concreted showed no signs of moisture. The underground spring apparently crested right where the wood floor had been. During the heavy rains, the power was out, so no sump pump was going. Here you can see the results.

Pretty discouraged at this point. On a side note, all of the support columns were leaning several degrees. Fortunately, the pilasters under neath each one had a lot of extra surface area. We repurposed some of the old floor joists to reinforce each of the support posts. We did that before the heavy rains, so the ground was wet and soft, but you could still walk on it.

At first, we just cut a few shallow trenches by hand to get some of the water flowing to the drain pipe or the well. You can see evidence of some of those hand cut trenches in the pics above. I just needed to get some water moving out of there. It was either that, or stock it with fish.

Subscribed!

Got the sump pump going again, and started pumping out water. The hand dug trenches and sump pump helped start drying it out a bit.

The plan was perforated drain pipe. Sherri and I eventually trenched for 380 feet of perforated drain pipe. I started with a trench down the South side of the building, to give an exit path for the water. I had to hand dig a trench down the side of the building (no room for a trencher or mini excavator) and bore a 6 inch hole in a 13 inch thick retaining wall to shed all the water. I spent 10 hours breaking out asphalt, concrete and digging clay on Memorial Day. You can see the pipe laying in the trench in the first pic below.

In the second pic below, you can see where I cut out some of the existing slab so I could run the pipe outside that South door and down the side of the building. I have it circled.

While busting out concrete and digging, I ran into an old footer for what must have been a previous structure on the site. I had to saw cut that footer and chip the pieces out one dime size piece of concrete at a time; took two days to get deep enough. I can only saw cut 4 inches deep at a time. So, I would run a bunch of cuts, chip it out the best I could, and cut some more, until I was down a full 26 inches below grade. As soon as I got that path cleared to the pipe out the side of the building, more water started migrating out the side. At this point, I am not sure if this is going to keep me young, or make an old man out of me.

Between the trenches and the sump pump, the groud was drying out pretty well. Still muddy; but I was able to get my little tractor in there with a box blade and start pulling out dirt and rocks.

My back is sore just looking at the pics! Well done!

Finally dried out enough by late June that I could trench. Time to rent a trencher.

What a beast. Pull start motor that tended to kick back from time to time.

Because the ground was so soggy, I had to lay boards on top for the trencher to ride on. We saved the worst section for last; right by the well. I was about 1/3 of the way through, when one of the boards slipped out. The trencher immediately sunk into the wet clay about a foot on that side. It was hopelessly stuck…. Well almost. It was 9 p.m. on Sat. nite. I had been trenching since 8 a.m. Well, to be fair, I picked the trencher up at 8. Probably didn’t start using that “spawn of satan” machine for another hour or so. The trencher was tilted about 30 degrees in the mud. Trying to get it out under its own power was futile. I dug down under the sunken track, and was able to insert a 2x8 under it; Still would not pull out on its own. So, I tied several ratchet straps to it, hooked it up to the tractor that was over on concrete flooring, and gave Sherri some quick tractor driving lessons. With Sherri pulling, and me giving it all the gas and pulling for all I am worth, after three attempts, we got it moving. It took me nearly an hour at the car wash and about 25 quarters to get all the mud off of it. I finished up about midnight; had to have the trencher back to the rental place at 8 a.m. Sunday morning. How bad to I want this shop?

Sorry, but no pics of this disaster. We were both too engaged in surviving the day to stop and take pics.

All the trenches had standing water. But, they were all draining into the pipe I had laid next to the building, so we were on the right track. The next two weekends were all about lining the trenches with landscape fabric, putting in a base of 1.5 inch gravel, laying the perforated pipe, connecting all the pipes, covering with gravel, then closing in the fabric, filling with dirt, then hand tamping it all down. I also installed a permanent automatic sump pump in the well, and plumbed two inch PVC into the drainage pipes. The pump comes on about once every 15 minutes for maybe 6 seconds at a time. The drain pipe going down the South side of the building to the West of the building drained constantly (not a drip mind you, a slow continuous pouring of water 24 – 7) and the place started drying out. We got a couple more heavy rains. Sadly, there was one area that would still collect water. So, I hand dug one more trench in that area, dug up some of the previously installed pipes, and connected it all together. We had in excess of 380 foot of perforated drain pipe in all. After the next heavy rain, I was really anxious when I went down to check on things. Finally, the entire dirt floor area was dry, even after a heavy rain. There was hope.

You can see from this shot that when the PO had the upper floor poured, they trucked in loads of sand for a base. The “solution” to keeping the sand in place was to place a lot of boards between the upper floor and the old wooden floor. MUCH of the sand had migrated out, going down under the wood floor.
We needed a retaining wall if I wanted a concrete floor on that lower level. Also, those two brick supports under the two wooden support posts were crumbling. If you look closely, you can see that we used some of the old floor joists to shore up the tilted wooden posts. The floor joists were probably overkill for this, but they were free. They are about 2 to 2.5 times as dense and heavy as modern wood, and there are no knots.
Look at the pic below. The floor joists are the darker wood. They are dead plumb. You can see how tilted the old posts are. Fortunately, the concrete pilasters at the base of each pillar (original to the building) are large enough to accommodate the extra wood.
In the second pic, I have removed the crumbling brick bases that went between the pillar and the wooden posts. I built temporary supports for that part of the building during the process. I sawed off the bottom of each post. I did not take pics, but I build new supports out of 4 inch steel posts (1/4 inch thick walls) welded to steel plates on each end. When we poured the retaining wall, we encased all the steel in concrete.

Wow quite the project. Have enjoyed following along.

Don't get discouraged! While my recent project is not near the same magnitude as yours, the fight between weather and contractors had me wondering WTF am I doing? It seems as it is a real struggle to spend real money sometimes.

Looks like the building will have some real character when it's done. That's something you will never get from a pole shed!

Tim

We built a frame to hold a concrete retaining wall using ¾ inch plywood and a bunch of 2x4 stiff backs. After hand tamping a ton of 1 inch gravel in the bottom, I lined it with a boat load of 5/8 rebar. You can see some of the framework below, but I did not get a pic of the completed form. I ran a string line across and made certain it was dead level before forming. I had 2 x 4 and 2 x 6 struts running to 2 x 4 stakes. There was a strut every 16 inches.
We rented a pumper and pumped in 9.5 yards of concrete. The wall is 45 feet long, 18 inches thick, and about 24 inches high. If you do the math, you will see that doesn’t even come close to requiring 9.5 yards. Where did all the extra concrete go? We pumped it under the existing upper slab.
This job went really fast. Gotta love the pumper. Beat the hell out of wheeling it in.
That wall will be the base for a non load bearing wall between the upper and lower levels. Even though “J” bolts were not required for an interior non load bearing wall, I put a bunch in there. Upper level is just for storage. That way, I only need to heat the lower level. Getting that wall in was a real turning point for me. I was finally believing we could get this done.
I had one small area that bowed out maybe a half inch. No one notices but me.

Nice job. I certainly think that under-pinned section (depending on the re-bar pattern used) would be able to support a heavy load. While you're at it put in a concrete underground tornado shelter in time for spring twisters!

Looks great Lynn :biggthumpup:

By September, things were looking pretty good. I used a 50+ pound tamper to pound in the ground over all of the trenches. I ran some conduit into the well so I could run an extension cord in there for the sump pump. As stated earlier, the sump pump is plumbed into the drainage system, so I wouldn’t need an external hose running across the floor. There is ALWAYS water coming out of the drain to the West of the building.

When I dug the last trench, and plumbed it into the other drainage pipe, I put a little floor drain in right where it all comes together. I went ahead and concreted around that floor drain. I am putting up a sign over it to indicate “no waste” as it drains to a waterway. You can see that 2x2 pad with the drain in one of the pictures below.

Sherri and I built a 6 foot by 6 foot frame around the well. The top of that frame is perfectly level, and the plan was to pour concrete right up to it. After the slab was poured, then I would take care of concreting around the well. I normally do my own concrete work, but a 45 x 25 slab was more than I am equipped to do. Sherri pleaded with me to hire it out, and I have to tell you, it didn’t take much convincing. Both of my shoulders are worn out. I have no cartilage in either one. Doing all this work with shoulder joints that are bone on bone is taking a toll. I still wasn’t willing to give up control of the work around the well. I did some research on man hole covers, and decided to treat it the same as if it were a giant man hole.

I contracted with a local firm. I talked to an acquaintance that owns the largest independent auto repair shop in the area. He had to relocate a few years ago because of new road construction. They took his old building by Eminent Domain. I looked at the floor in his new shop, and was impressed with the quality. So I hired the same guys he used.

I bought a roll of fabric underlay. This is the thick woven geotextile you see them placing under the gravel base on new interstate highways. I also bought a roll of 15 mil vapor barrier, along with the necessary tape to seal the joints in the vapor barrier. If we ever get 10 inches of rain again, I wanted the vapor barrier to force the water down into my drainage system, rather than have it wick up through the concrete .

I had them excavate (there wasn’t a LOT of dirt left to come out) to a uniform depth of 8 inches. Then they laid down the woven geo textile; then 3 inches of gravel. Compact the gravel. Then lay on the vapor barrier and seal every joint with tape. Finally, re-mesh, and pour concrete 5 inches thick. It was kind of a pain, but they did a good job. You can see a flap of the green vapor barrier sticking out from under that little 2 x 2 pad I poured around the drain. They had to join that part to the main part. They also had to extend the vapor barrier under my 6 x 6 frame. If you look closely, there are no external stakes on that frame. The closest stake is at least 4 inches inboard. I suspended the whole thing from the inside, so they could tuck enough of the vapor barrier underneath, and I could tape to it when I did the concrete inside. I did not want this system to fail. Even if the sump pump were to fail, there is a safety outlet for water to get into the drainage system before it gets to the top of the well.