Unfortunately, can't plant Mimosa, it's invasive

I would love to plant pretty little mimosa rosea in back yard to the north west of pool house, in the portion of my backyard that will remain after all construction projects are done (whenever that is, 2020?).

I have a mimosa, possibly rosea cultivar, planted in my front yard by previous home owner, and it's pretty, tall enough for significant shade and walking underneath, but not too tall to interfere with solar panels on roof (which I wouldn't put on that northeast side of roof anyway, but new planting site is in backyard, southwest side, prime solar location).

But unfortunately the Mimosa is classified as noxious and invasive.  Invasive isn't so much about one's own yard (it's easy to keep Mimosa under control here in Texas, you can pull sprouts out or mow 'em down, and the tree hardly makes it through summer anyway).  But the seeds can propagate through birds, water flow, etc., to places where they can out-compete native tree and shrub species.

So, sadly, I will have to pick out some other tree.

Calculating sheetrock needed for ceiling

From previous calculations, dimensions of interior area:

13' 2.6875"
10' 10.6875"

Round up to nearest inch:

13' 3" or 159 total inches
10' 11" or 131 total inches

Calculate width of 6" rising sides, from 9' walls to 9' 6" center, assuming 5/12 roofing.

6 / (5/12) = 14.4

So, center portion is reduced by 28.8" in width.  Since we already rounded up by 0.3", we can take this subtrahend as simply 29":

10' 11" = 131" - 29" = 101"

So the center portion is 159" x 101"

The sides are 14.4 in horizontal width, but we have to include rise, along the 5/12 slope.  So we multiply 14.4" by 1 / cos(5/12 * pi / 4) or (the latter being approximately 1.056).  (I had to repeate this calculation several times and think a lot, it boggles my mind that the number would be so small.)  Thus 14.4 * 1.056 is  15.2064.  That just doesn't seem right, that 1" buys us 6" of rise (though it could be true, maybe).

Instead, I'll take a more generous allowance for the rise, and simply add it to the sides, giving 20.4 inches, and then round down to 20 inches

So the ceiling consists of 2 sides 20" by 101", and 1 center portion at 159 x 101".

Total square inches is 16059 + 4040 = 20099 sqin

Total square feet is 20099 / 144 = 139.6 or, rounding up 140.

Each 4x8 panel is 32 sq ft.

If there were no waste (unlikely), it would take 140 / 32 = 4.375 or rounding up 5.

This is less than I expected.  It's certainly a lower bound because some will be wasted.

Building guides suggest rounding up is sufficient, so 5 would be minimum.  I'd feel safer with 6, or maybe 7.

As reality check, try simply multiplying inches:

159 * 131 = 20829

That's more than what I calculated, I must have made some mistake, but still under 5 panels (23040 sq in).

Leftover could be used on front wall.  Front wall is 9'6" (114") by 131 which equals 14934 sqin less opening which is 72 * 80 inches which equals 5760.  Net size is 9174 sqin, or 63.7 sqft.  2 32sqft panels just barely cover.  Front wall needs some additional vibration resistance because a good portion of wall is devoted to french door, and beyond rattling roof the next worst thing is rattling french door.

For just ceiling, I'd need at least 5 panels but 6 would allow better margin.  For doing front, 2 panels but 3 with margin.  Doing both, 8 panels should provide plenty of margin.  So I'll ask for 8.

Back yard shading

At 7:10 PM CDT on June 12, the western side of my back yard is entirely shaded with the shadow running about 3 feet up the walls of my house (no where near roof).  This is due to shading from large tree, maybe 25 feet high, in western neighbor's back yard (we share only western corner), plus shading from my 6' fencecrete fence.

Meanwhile, there is essentially no shading of pool house site.  The shadow cast by fence is just beginning to touch upon the site at ground level.

Outlook is good from for solar power on pool house roof.  One possibility is to have panel on roof ridge along northeast to southwest axis.  Optimum solar panel position would be along ridge of roof, canted toward south southwest or straight southwest.  Southeast solar ingress is blocked by southeastern neighbor's current large tree.  Instead of being along edge, for easier installation, the first one could be on either northeast or southwest side of roof ridge.  The advantage of the northeast side is that it would be less vulnerable to future trees in neighboring lots.  The advantage of the southwest side is that it would be less visible from master bedroom window and provide less blockage to future solar panels on main house roof.

Tree selected for back yard

As I elaborated in comment to earlier post, there is only one spot remaining in my back yard lot for a significant tree.  That is to the northwest of pool house (and therefore will not shade it significantly) but to the southwest of the northwestern corner of my house.

What looks to be the best tree for this location is the one I have in the front yard, a Mimosa Rosea.  This will not grow high enough to interfere with future plans to have large solar array on the southwestern roof of my house.  But it will provide delightful shade to the back yard for entertainment and appearance.

These trees are invasive where climate is cooler and wetter.  I have never had an issue with the Mimosa in my front yard reseeding.  It is just too hot and dry in autumn when the seed pods fall for it to do that here.

Ronnie back for 30 minutes

Just as I was stressing about whether Ronnie was just going to run away with the money ($5100 so far), and even if he didn't, if I should just go ahead and cancel this whole project because it keeps stressing me out...

Ronnie showed up this morning for 45 minutes or so with a powered earth compactor, and did some re-compacting on the now moved slab location.

Good!  That had been my most serious concern about his seemingly half-hearted version of moving the slab location on Tuesday.  And it shows he's still working on my project, though likely sharing time (and equipment?) with other projects.

As I've said numerous times to various people (perhaps worded differently for Ronnie himself) I don't care so much how long this project takes, so long as the quality is nothing but the best.

If the way I get to "best" is by waiting for him to have spare time and equipment from other projects, that's OK.

I have been more than a little anxious, however, to get concrete poured before the worst of summer heat.  We're getting pretty good levels of summer heat already, so it's impossible to beat the heat altogether, but hopefully we can beat the worst heat in July or August.

Also truck mixed concrete is mixed for prevailing temperatures.  You might not want concrete in a freak hot or cold spell if the concrete mixers haven't had time to adjust.  But from here on, there aren't likely to be many freak cold spells like there were in May.

solar power vs trees

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23258714/ns/us_news-environment/t/california-its-solar-panels-vs-redwoods/

Slab forms moved, but doesn't look as good now

On Tuesday morning Ronnie and associate moved the slab forms back to comply with the easement.  On Monday he had suggested 18" back (from 11 feet to 12.5, the easement is 12).  Then on Tuesday he asked me what I wanted, I said anything from 18" to 3 feet back would be fine, whatever was best or most convenient.

He also brought in another truckload of base, filled in the back beam trenches with base, and spread more base around the front.  He compacted all the new base with hand tool.  The previous time he did the compacting he used a power tool.

Then he showed me his work.  I very much like the fact that the new forms are actually at 13 feet, well out of the way of the easement.  But I don't like the fact that he only used hand tool to do the compacting, and, frankly, the new form doesn't look anywhere near as nice as the first setup.  You can see air underneath and some of the boards are nailed a bit crooked.  I complained about that twice.  I should be more careful and respectful and only complain once.  Though I didn't make a stink about it, I just complained a couple of times that it didn't look as nice.  He said he would add the second board after digging the beams out.  That's funny because last time he put the boards in first (which looked perfect) and then started digging.

After all that, he requested another $1500 payment for all the slab upgrades (from the original 10x12 design with hardi plank, to the new industrial strength larger size 12.5 x 14'10" engineered for 9 foot brick siding) and for moving the slab.  I wrote him a check from my Discover card.

Funny he hasn't shown up this morning yet and it's 10:50am.

Current payments to Ronnie total $5100 plus $535.81 for the engineering (grand total $5635.81).

$2500 on May 6   (check # 6155)
$1100 on May 10 (check # 6156)
$1500 on June 7   (discover # 485)

Engineering was refunded to Ronnie (he gave  me invoice stamped payed from GE Reaves Engineering) on June 1 for $535.81 (check #6159).