The Brew Cabin

Hi Tony and friends,
I am a Hardscaping contractor in Maryland, USA.
I have spent many hours exploring your site. Very impressive !! I can't believe how much work it must have taken for you to build and maintain this site.
What a great service!!
There are a few things that we (I) might to a bit differently. But you do address them. Do to the freeze thaw cycles here. I use the flexible plastic edging instead of setting the edge course in concrete as you describe. I also use paver glue to attach the caps to the Block (kerbs? I believe you call them?).
Otherwise every thing else is pretty much the same.
I am currently tearing out a 50' X 4' concrete walk and stoop that is full of construction wire and re-rod.

I am then going to build a curved paver walk, running bond pattern, 4" X 8" pavers Salmon and Charcoal Blend. The Risers and caps of the surved face stoop will be constructed of Dakota Blend Terrace Wall and paved with above pavers.

Keep up the great work!!!

Cheers,

Charlie

P.S.
Oh the other thing that I have to get use to is you guys use metric measures and we use the "dumb" inches, feet, yards etc.

Britain and Ireland enjoy a maritime climate, so we don't suffer from excessive frost heave, as do you in N.America and our neighbours in continental Europe, which means we can get away with thinner sub-bases and edge courses laid on and haunched with concrete.

Other than sheer stubbornness, I've never understood why the US, and quite a few Luddites here in Britain/Ireland, refuse to switch over once and for aever to the metric system whis is far,far simpler than the old imperial systems of measurement. I know that brickies and the like are stuck in the past, be we in the civils trade have been using metric since the early 70s and it's about time the rest of the trade caught up with us!

Tony,
I could not agree more. We have the worst of both worlds here. I have to have all the metric tools to work on my imported equipment. And all the "standard" tools to work on my American junk.

Charlie

This is the second time the metric/imperial debate has come up this evening. I know that the site attracts a number of visitors from Forrin Climes, but, as I said elsewhere, I can see no sense at all in going through the site providing dual figues every time a dimension is used - it would be cumbersome. Imagine having to read about 100mm/4" sub-base wiith a 35-50mm/1½-2" laying course and then 65mm/2½" pavers!! It'd drive me mad!

However, I could provide a pop-up-and-stay-up metric-imperial conversion guide for our Merkin visitors - would that be useful, and, if so, how best to draw it to the attentions of thos ein need of it? Any suggestions?

Tony,
I think the pop up box conversion chart is a great idea!
I don't really know what it should look like.
Maybe MM = inches and feet ?
sq/cubic liters = sq/cubic yards
I am not much on math so I hope the above makes some kind of sence.

But just seeing the metric/imperial figures side by side to compare would be very useful. Even my old lazy brain would start to adapt after repeated exposure.

Again,I am loving this site!
Keep up the great work.
Charlie

Since I'm US-based, and selling in Europe, I'm forever having to make conversions. I have a nifty little program that 'lives' on my desktop -- it has all the usual conversions, and allows you to enter the calculations to convert custom measurements -- like the nightmarish transition in coverage rates from square feet per gallon to square metres per litre. (NOOOO!) :)

It's called Metric Converter 4.6, and it can be found at http://www.vaibhavweb.tripod.com.

Good luck!

I'm getting a 404 at that url, Amy.

Hey Amy,
Great idea on the metric conversion!

I tried the URL and got to the Tripod page, but got the message:

"Sorry, but the page or the file that you're looking for is not here."

I will give it another look/see. Do you have any thing else I can try to get the conversion table?

Thanks,
Charlie


"

Amy,
I searched the Tripod site again and found the metric conversion table. I am going to explore it now.
Thanks,
Charlie

Ahh, the fickle nature of the interweb. I checked and double-checked the URL, and even tested it after my comment had posted.

The REAL URL should be http://vaibhavweb.tripod.com/ -- don't put in the www.

Sorry for sending everyone off on a wild goose chase.

It can't possibly be because I've not had enough coffee yet this morning :D

Thanks Amy!
I tried to download but got a message from the Tripod site that I could not. I sent a request to the developer of the progarm for assistance.
Thanks again,
Charlie

I've now added the Metric-Imperial Pop-Up aid to the navigation bar at the top of every page on the site.

See the green bar near the top of the page? On the extreme right-hand edge? Units? Click that! :~)

Wodjer fink?

Tony,
Thanks for adding the "Units"
I did try clicking on Units but got the following message:

"HTTP 404 - File not found
Internet Explorer "

I will give it another try later.
Thanks,
Charlie

Well done for spotting the deliberate mistake!

I forgot that I need to specify the absolute path, and not the relative path when linking to files from the Brew Cabin. it should be right, now. (fingers crossed).

Tony,
Excellent chart!!
I love it and will refer to it often.
We Merkins and Luddites very much appreaciate your hard work.

Hmnn?? Now if I can just figure out what a Merkin and a Luddite is?????????????

Charlie