Backyard parking

Discussion in 'Station Wagon Lounge' started by Stormin' Norman, Mar 13, 2009.

  1. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    Up here in Southern Manitoba, Canada, our Frostline goes down to 3.5 to 4 feet. Even the city's fence recommendations tell people to dig postholes down to 3.5 feet (and more if possible) when pouring the concrete around it. Those that use just the stone/sand backfill usually find their posts all wonky after one or two winters.

    Well, I hate (and I mean it) cutting weeds out of clean gravel. And worse than that is hauling our lovingly called Manitoba Gumbo (we have a lot of clay in the earth here (Red River Valley runs North, too!). So last year, after the Wagon resto, I dropped some tar paper over the parking area and laid down 9 yards of 'pea gravel' - we call it quarter-down. Its sand and small tyndal stone chips from the quarries.

    The tar paper (roofing paper) keeps the weeds out for a couple decades (I hope, I hope), but it also keeps the ice and snow on top. Now that we're getting over the Freeze-point, I'm gonna find out if I need a steeper drainage angle or a bigger sump pump. Anyway, no more gumbo into the house. Hopefully, no water either. But the area is under a flood warning. It seems North Dakota's overflow will run North into our part of the Red, and all the way up to Hudson Bay (700 miles of lakes and tributaries).

    What else do people do to help off-lot drainage. The backalley is concrete pavement and angled to the side streets, about 200 feet away. and I put a good 1/2" per 8 feet angle, but that ice and snow looks like it may have compacted it down over the winter. hmmm.:banghead3:
     
  2. Taranau

    Taranau Well-Known Member

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    parking stuff

    Here in LA,all parking must be done on concrete or asphalt.The parking surface must be laid down as thick as is required for any driveway.Four to six inches,I believe.This is to keep liquids that leak out of the cars from getting into the ground---and the groundwater.You can have a gravel driveway,if you want,but the gravel has to sit on top of or be embedded into the concrete or asphalt underneath it.It is a $50 ticket(per car),when you get caught parking on a lawn or other off-road location.To park a car in a backyard,one would need to put a parking platform of concrete or asphalt there first.Between the backyard and the street does not have to be paved.But where the cars park does.
     
  3. CapriceEstate

    CapriceEstate Yacht Captain

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    Boy, leave it to Commie California. We have 3 cars and a motorcycle in the garage. A motorcycle in the finished basement, I'm looking at it rite now. My car sits beside the garage on the driveway, and we have 3 in the woods, and 1 more in a temporary shed and a tractor in the other temporary shed.
     
  4. Ford_Fellow

    Ford_Fellow Well-Known Member

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    I would be gittin a lot of tickets....I can see and understand both sides of the situation........After how I have enjoyed myself here I would not be able to adjust to urban life.....nope nope nope....

    .......Hugh.......
     
  5. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, I know what you mean. Our entire rush hour lasts 30 minutes! In Toronto, it's like LA's, home by 8:00 PM.

    I can't imagine the city ever forcing people for paved driveways. There's a company here called 'MuddRuckers' who offer a service to pump your paved driveway back up, after spring frost comes out by early June. You can't even dig a post hole until mid-May!

    http://www.muddruckers.com/

    Anyway, it's warm today (-1C = 31F), but the sun is just cookin', so I put the car on the street, and the gravel seems to be draining off the melted ice. So far, so good.
     
  6. Taranau

    Taranau Well-Known Member

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    Y'all think that's bad?..In LA City,you can't fix a car on the city streets.Most especially the one right out in front of your house.Some other cities in SoCal have laws against fixing your car on your diveway(stains on driveways bring down property values)you have to get your car fixed inside your garage or at a fix-it shop.(fixing your car where others can see you doing it is low class and inconsiderate)In many cities you cannot put up one of those tent style carports(that low class property devaluating thing again)And you can't park your boat or RV where your neighbours can see them,either.Even if it's a ritzy neighbourhood and one of those $1,000,000 motorhomes,RV's signify trailerpark.And trailerparks are full of trash...One must build a garage for one's RV and/or boat---or have them stored at great cost at a proper RV/boat storage facility,you know.:yup:;)
     
  7. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    Decades ago, a friend of mine was giving a public speech about Freedom. He pointed out that our national parks have a gorgeous sign inviting the public to come in. When you get to entrance, there's about 20 DO's and DON'Ts. And a brochure with all the fines and criminal/civil penalties. But its your park. No tips on how to enjoy the park though or even a trail map.
     
  8. the Rev

    the Rev senior junior Charter Member

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    Cali is soooo populated that they have to have some guidelines!!
    i understand it....just couldnt live there!!:oops:

    At least its not like some 'states'....some you cant even wash your own car in your own driveway !!:49:

    We have a new law coming in up here that you will only be allowed 1...yes 1...unlicensed car per yard !?!?!?....and no exception for 'junk cars'....junk being defined as "unlicensed for 1 calender year or unable to move under its own power"......I'm dead when that comes in!!:banghead3:

    .....I may have to move next door to Hugh..:rofl:
     
  9. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    That's one hotbutton that would really pi$$ me off. You probably know how broke our Winnipeg Northend is, Rev. Well there's some honest guys sharing my backalley about 300 feet away, that do some really good mechanical work for the locals. We've got the highest concentration of WW1 and WW2 seniors up here, in their 80's and 90's, in their own homes and some with their 60 year old daughters living with them so that they stay independant, not in a Senior's Warehouse. Those backyard mechanics do good work, sometimes for only the cost of parts, for these old folks. So its a bit messy sometimes, but so is the garbage bin system.

    Hugh, you got a few acres for sale? It's either that, or back to Mexico for me, if that ever happened here. Freakin' bureaucrats pushing the Olympics scam! Pretty soon, they'll let you buy green dye for the lawns, just for the tourists flying over Vancouver Airport.
     
  10. Taranau

    Taranau Well-Known Member

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    You can wash your car in your driveway or on the street(just not work on it),here in LA,but only if the dirty soapy water isn't going to reach a storm drain opening.You can even degrease your engine in this manner,as long as the gook isn't going to end up in the ocean...If it's going to stay curbside on the street and evaporate into the air,that's okay!:16suspect1: I don't think I've ever heard of the Police ticketing anyone for working on their car on the street.They don't seem to hand out the tickets for bad tail-lights and headlights anymore either...They've got more important stuff to do,I'm sure.:yup:
     
  11. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    Taranau, it seems like big cities are fighting a losing battle. They need more people to pay the taxes, but they can't deliver on the quality of life that people expect for all the taxes they pay.

    People move to the big cities with the hope a better job, and move back to boondocks where you can grow some food and live cheaper.

    You've no doubt heard about all the Avalanches and our Tarsands oil. Besides being a major polluter, its also a major drain on water. When there's not enough humidity in the snow, they get more avalanches. The tarsands have been sucking up 300 billion litres of water from the lakes and rivers since the late 70's. It got so bad in 2002, that the capital city of Edmonton imposed a ban on filling swimming pools, hot-tubs, lawn watering, and car-washing, so that the Alberta Tarsands could have enough water to process the crude out of the tarsands.

    That wasn't enough. Alberta's cattle industry and vegetable and grain farmers got the Province to agree to STEAL water from one of the major Canadian rivers that irrigates their neighbouring grain province and ours, 600 miles east of them. When that wasn't enough, they started sucking the Montana Milk River down, so bad, that Montana's cattle ranchers got into it. And so far, this year, we've lost almost a dozen people in avalanches. I concede that most were avoidable, in today's context, but 30 years ago, they would never have happened.

    The worst one we ever had, and theRev probably has more info, is the one through the old TransCanada 2 lane highway that went through the rail tunnels, through a little town called Hell's Gate. The Fraser River Mudslide was also a disaster, but that's a warm weather issue.

    We're pushing the planet to its tolerance level, but we've gotta put our ingenuity caps back on to find other ways of doing things. If Mars is our twin planet, somehow a methane world is what we need to avoid. We could always ship the old fart politicians to Mars. Less CO2 coming from their hot air might be a first step. :rofl2::rofl2::rofl2:
     
  12. Ford_Fellow

    Ford_Fellow Well-Known Member

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    Somewhere along the way you have lost the ownership of your property....When I was on a tour I was looking at places and they build fence's around entire community's and then they build fences around their property inside the community..They build little prisons .........I have been able to see as the population increase's more little rules come all the time and the the lawmakers in Victoria make blanket rules for the whole province when them is not in our world.....and not want their city stuff....
    Come on up Rev................anytime just call and make sure I here.....in fact any person that has certifiable car disease stop in as a going through....Lots of room here and if you need a place to park or just a coffee as you a tearing through life.... stop in.....There is nothing fancy here and everthing is well used but there no problem with a campfire and space to breath some fresh air......I went down to Portal Cove last summer to be with the grandpuppy's and we camped there....told the warden we had more room in the carport....if go down again this summer would like a McGreggor sailboat....not stuck in a campsite..got to find me one of them....OH OH there I go on and on again....

    ......Hugh........
     
  13. Stormin' Norman

    Stormin' Norman Well-Known Member

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    HandyAndy doesn't mention it much, but he's got half an island up in Lake o' the Woods and a couple boats too. I'm gonna with him on his next run, after the roads dry up. When we first moved here in 1999, we had a couple crab-apple trees, a 4 foot frost fence (metal grille type). Since we've had more gangs and car-jackings and robberies, the city has encouraged people to put up higher fences, up to 13.5 feet high! The good guys build their own jails?!? Nutso.

    I really want to take the Wife across the Prairies to BC and especially up to PG and Cache Creek and some old friends at 100 Mile House.

    You ever seen the Buffalo herds around Prince Albert in SASK? Wow!

    And the best pie in Canada is at a truck stop going west into Estevan Sask. But my favourite Canadian HWY is the YELLOWHEAD. Flat as a pancake and straight across some of the finest grain farmers. Sunflowers running 8 to 10 feet high, oceans of Mustard Seed and Canola flowers, and Wheat. You can't see the end of it! Love to come and visit.

    My wife and I spent one night in a state park in southern TX, sleeping under the stars. Bad luck though, we got there late and missed the signs about the red ants. Nasty little buggers. :biglaugh: Short rest... my shortest. :biglaugh:But she loves camping.:thumbs2:
     
  14. Taranau

    Taranau Well-Known Member

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    parking junkers

    I'm pretty sure I mentioned this elsewhere;There's a family in the suburb of LA that I live in,who'd paved their front yard,so they could park their small collection of Nash Metropolitans on it.Some are for driving and some are for parts.Some neighbours had called about the vermin infested junk in their yard.When the inspector came,he found the cars to be clean and uninfested.Well taken care of,actually.And said there was nothing wrong with what they were doing.The family asked him,how to avoid further complaints.He told them to put up a redwood fence with slats on both sides,to keep it impossible to see thru.They did just that and the complaints stopped...I'm not sure how things are going to work out,where you guys are.:( Especially,since it sounds like,the inspectors aren't going to be so cooperative.
     
  15. Taranau

    Taranau Well-Known Member

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    those tarsands

    I guess,because of your experiences with them up there,the idea of going after the fuel that might be got from tarsand extraction(as they're calling it down here)isn't being met very well.There is a great amount of opposition to it,allready...The "gated communities" in the LA area were labeled racist at first.Because,at first,only richer white folk could afford to live in them,but there are many "multi-cultured gated communties" now,and no one makes that complaint anymore.My wife and I are constantly distresed by new development that makes the apartment buildings and/or condo-complexes look like those storage unit buildings and/or prison buildings...And it has also distresed us,that TheRev's idea of the family vacation(Mom,Dad and the Kids and everything those four or five people are going to need,to go camping in the woods for a week)in the wagon is basically frowned upon.A small bag for each person in the trunk of the Beemer and a B&B destination has become the more acceptable vacation option.A cruise across great expanses of countryside and spending the night "outdoors:49:" has become passe.:disagree: If you're going to cruise,you have to fly to the coast and hop on an oceanliner to "do it the right way":naughty:...
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2009

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