Well while you guys are sitting on your butts doing nothing but tearing me apart for doing nothing, I was busy doing something. The weather has been crappy. Lots of rain. But I worked between storms and got quite a bit done. Here is the starting point.
This is the west side of my house, the backyard, and the patio will extend from the existing slab southward to the layout at the side yard. I had to make sure the septic tank lid wasn’t going to end up under a slab. So I dug it up to locate it. I will drop that 24"dia PVC sewer pipe over it and put a concrete lid on top and bury it 6"deep.
Yesterday and today I shoveled the dirt down under the arbor about 6" deep. I then formed it up and brought up about 2" of base rock. The pad will be 4" about .8 yards. I unloaded 2000# of gravel for the base and to mix in the cement.
I am hoping to pour on the weekend. Our weather is calling for mix rain and overcast. The weekend might be promising. I will get some plastic to cover it in case of rain. I need to haul in more sand gravel over the next two days as well as dig the rest of the dirt.