Hey Folks,

The pavilion elves showed up the other day, and in about a day and a half, two guys put this thing up in sub freezing weather.

After they placed the layout lines they got to work boring holes for the posts.

That’s one heck of an auger on that Bobcat, but even so, there were a few rocks that would stall it.  I can’t imagine trying to bore those holes (4 feet deep) any other way. BTW- that rock is next to an 8×8 post.

I felt really sorry for these guys as they had to wait around in the cold for about 2 1/2 hours for their sand to arrive. I’m still impressed that the driver was able to get a 15 cu yd dump truck onto my lot.

After the holes were bored, and the sand delivered, they got to work setting the posts.  They had what I thought was an unusual and ingenious method.  Instead of setting the posts in wet concrete, they simply dropped a couple of bags of post hole mix into the hole and set the post directly on top.  Once it was centered and plumb, they backfilled with a load of sand and tamped it all down.

As they had cut all the pieces to plan before hand, it went up amazingly fast.

They finished up yesterday and Kris took the last couple of photos, as I lay in bed with a raging flu bug.  Thanks Kris.

This year is one for our biennial pig roast, so it looks like we’ll be comfortable rain or shine.

Cheers,
Tom