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Shepler's Marine
House pilings, pier restoration, boat docks, boat houses, boat lifts,
bulkheads, decks built.
Hm 251-965-3319
cell 251-978-0125
fax 251-965-6656
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We had all these extra very heavy, cornice
blocks. DacArt now makes them more hollow and with slightly different
dimensions. We knew that they did not want them back at the DacArt
plant. We also knew that we didn't want to spend money disposing of
them. Mike had the great idea of using them along the wood bulkhead
small sea-wall on Little Lagoon. I had long wanted some sort of sidewalk
down there. The salt water splashes up and over the wall and kills the
grass and then we have erosion. |
Dan arranged for Robert Shepler of Shepler's
Marine to come out and dig a trench behind our wood bulkhead and place
these huge concrete cornices end-to-end. Now, an interesting thing about
Robert is that he used to have a really long pony-tail. He cut it off
and donated his hair to the organization who makes wigs for kids with
cancer. We think he looks handsome with his short summer "do"
now.
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The funny thing was that the first block
that they set, just happened to be upside down. None of us noticed
because it did not have imbedded metal lift handles or rings. Turning it
around gave us a larger flat surface for our 'sidewalk'. They switched
it around and made quick work of digging out and setting about 2/3 rds
of the cornices to go the 100+ feet across the waterfront. Since we set
these things behind the bulkhead, and not out in the water, we didn't
have to bother getting any permits from Corp of Engineers.
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We have space between the blocks which is good because we normally get a
trickle of ground water running out to the lagoon. One of these days
when he have some time, we will grind off the metal handles and rings to
make for a safe standing surface.
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You can see on the end how the cornice blocks have the sloped side
facing my yard with dirt pushed up underneath them. This way they will
not have a tendency to want to fall out into the water.
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 Meanwhile, I have
to water the loose dirt each day for a while and hope that the St.
Augustine clumps and bit s take root and spread to cover the bare
dirt.
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Robert Shepler and his men, Charles, Eddy,
Bobby and Robert were done by mid-afternoon on the second day. While the
back-hoe was here, they also removed some concrete spills from the tight
west property side yard.
Robert placed them right along the
driveway to make it as simple as possible to get them hauled off. Mike
told me that the reason that they were there in the first place was that
one time the concrete pump truck line has a hard chunk of concrete stuck
in it and they had to disassemble the thing and clear it out and
meanwhile the pumper guy just dumped the contents of the pump tube over
the side of the wall. Construction makes for messes you don't count on
in the beginning. I hate these big plops of concrete because they kill
the grass underneath...totally.
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Remember to always stick a piece of scrap
rebar in the concrete when it is wet so you have some way to lift it to
get it out of your way later.
Robert made quick work of this job and he
had to bring every cornice thru the opening between our guest house and
the new house. Remember to always allow access on your property, esp if
you have waterfront.
On the first day, Robert brought the
cornices half way down and set them between the buildings as you can see
here. We were getting delivery of a 20 ft storage container first
thing in the morning and we needed the cornices out of the way.
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