I want to acquire skills and one of the skills I thought I was going to acquire was cement work. The house we bought was a short sale so there were some things not quite right. Actually this house is way better than a lot that we looked at. Usually when you buy a house you can ask a seller to fix things before you move in. They can always say no, but it is common to move into a house with everything in order. Well these short sales are pretty much “As Is” So it was not surprising that there were things missing. One of the things missing was a portion of the walkway. We were going to finish it off eventually, but we hadn’t quite decided what we were going to do. Well we got homeowner’s insurance and they did a visual inspection and sent us a letter that if we didn’t fix two things then they would cancel our policy. The two things were the missing sidewalk and the some tree branches that were touching the roof. Now we had to get it done quick. I wanted to do the cement work myself. I did some investigating and I figured that we needed about a yard and half of cement to fill the whole area. If I would have bought that cement bags at Home Depot that would have cost me about $250 just for the cement. I had talked to Mike Kellog who had just finished his son’s Eagle project and he was adamantly against buying those little bags from the store. So I looked into what it would take to have a truck deliver cement. It turns out that they will deliver the same for about $175. That is a total steal since it will be mixed delivered and dropped into place. A no brainer. Now I knew the big trucks hold about 10 yards. Oh yeah I had to learn about square yards since that weird English system is used. I later found out that the smaller trucks will hold about 3 yards. But I knew that I was going to have a little left over. I asked the Olmsteads if they might want some cement. Kent suggested I just call Danny Ortega in our ward and make life simple. I agreed and he came over and took care of everything FAST! He came over one day and was pouring the next. The whole job cost us $300. The balance was Danny’s portion. He probably worked 4 hours. I am sure I would have made some major mistakes and I didn’t have the stamping tools. So there we have it done! I emailed the photos to the insurance company.
Well I had to cut the branches that were touching the roof. That was something I certainly could handle. It seemed like a weird request. I mean the branches were more like leaves were grazing the roof. Look at this picture.
The only skill this required was that I had to climb the tree to make sure I got all of the leaves. Kim came out and took a picture.