Adding a 2-legged carport to the Temple at Middle Path

It started out as a convenience but - as usual - evolved.

It came to pass that we tired of trekking through clay and mud when bringing home the shopping in the rain. It also came to pass that we upgraded our car to one which was 100mm or so wider than the previous one.

What difference could 100 mm make we thought in a blissful, ignorance-based fashion.

The difference turned out to be a massive change to parking the car - what had previously been a close-attention-demanding adventure now became a nightmare of heart-attack proportions - not a good look for an organic health retreat!

And so it came to pass that we decided to add a carport to the temple despite many nay-sayers declaring that it would ruin the looks and spoil the lines of the building.

Drilling the holes for the stirrup piers

We needed fairly massive footings for the 2 posts which were going to hold up the roof. Rod drilled them in a couple of minutes which probably saved me hours of blood, sweat and tears.

Drilling the holes for the stirrup piers

Cleaning the hole

Cleaning the holes

The holes were almost perfect straight off the auger but I couldn't resist making sure there was no loose dirt in the bottom.

Largely encouraged by a free-thinking tape measure who also couldn't resist checking out the bottom of the hole.

Completed hole

This is what they looked like ready for filling - try making that with a spade!

Or a shovel.

Completed hole

Filling the hole

We needed about half a cubic metre of cement which was not a large task for the trusty cement mixer which was brought out of retirement for the job.

Reinforcing consisted of various bits of rebar we had “lying around” and our favourite - high tensile galvanised barbed wire.

Stirrup pier construction

One great advantage of hand-mixing the cement is that it all proceeds at a comfortable pace and the various inserte - rebar, stirrups etc - can be put in place and adjusted without the major stress of having a concrete truck full of wet cement looming over one's back..

This freshly-inserted stirrup is too low and will need the formwork to hold it at the correct height while the concrete goes off.

Stirrup pier construction

I was really reluctant to put in footings for posts due to congestion, buried water and sewage pipes so I chose to hang the inside end of the carport rafters from the temple's rafters.

Ready for the rafter extensions

I was surprised at the small difference in price between stainless steel and galvanised - here are the SS rafter hangers awaiting the carport beams.

Raising the beam

The outside of the roof is supported by a 6.6 metre 300X50 Ironbark beam - not sure how much it weighs but it was as much as Patrick and I could do to lift one end.

We had thought a crane would be useful, or a back hoe or even a bobcat but, as it panned out - it was suddenly time to lift it into place and there wasn't a machine in sight.

Every conceivable stair, step, ladder, sawhorse and even a milk crate was assembled for the first-one-end then the other inching of the beam into place atop the 150X150 posts.

Raising the beam - clamping the first end into place

Structure complete - the bracing remains in place whilst the timbers settle into place

Structure complete

The roof is being sheeted to complete the structure.

We were keen to take all the bracing off so we could see how she looked.

We now had a ridgy-didge carport with roof and everything a top-shelf carport could want but as the sun sinks in the north during the winter months - the roof wasn't going to provide much shade.

And especially as the sun sank in the west each afternoon we observed the same lack of protection - obviously walls are what is needed but we couldn't come up with a design which fitted in with the surroundings.

A chance remark by Patrick about his wife using a piece of guttering for a hanging garden stimulated a stream of consciousness which culimnated started us to thinking about a food wall and a dream trellis - but they are another story .......

The Tour
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