What I was referring to was the length. 20 foot 2x12s. I think that that is longer than they are commonly offered. And they sure must be expensive as hell. You buried them in the ground? OK, but I would have gone with 10 footers or more likely used 6x6 landscape timbers.
I’ve carried 20 foot sections of pipe on top of my Pathfinder. I would not want to put 20’ 2x12s up there.
I question the length of the lumber. 20’ 2x12s, just as a gravel barrier. If you found 2x12s that long, you sure did pay a dear price for a piece of wood to bury in the ground.
Let me add that if you used 20 foot long 2x12’s as a gravel, sand and brick barrier, you are in no position to point fingers at other people and say “not needed.”
First off one 20’ cost a little less than 2 10’. IIRC, and yes pressure treated lumber is heavier than hell.
The advantage I had is that my car roof is less than shoulder height on me (I’m only 5’7") If I tried this same trick on an SUV I would need at the minimum a step ladder, and quite possibly 2 and a friend to help me load and unload them.
WTF? First off do you have any clue just how big a piles 3 cubic yards of gravel and 3 cubic yards of sand are? Jesus Christ we are talking a dump truck load here. Please give me a cite for an SUV that has a six cubic yard cargo area. Also please name one SUV owner dumb enough to put 3 cubic yards of sand inside their SUV.
FTR I don’t think that anywhere in this thread I have bashed SUV’s or their owners, I was just pointing out that it is not necessary to own the biggest thing on the road in order to haul many large and unwieldy things.
You want to drive an SUV? More power to you, enjoy. They are not my cup of tea.
Lastly, why is it not OK for someone to bash your choice of vehicle, but it your mind it is OK for you to bash my choice of landscape material and design? I choose presure treated lumber because it had the features that I wanted in a barrier. Furthermore, the 12 inch width gives me 6" in the ground so I don’t have to worry about it shifting, and ruining the patio that I worked so hard to build. You build the patio in your yard your way, I built mine my way m’kay?
I know how much 3 + 3 yards of gravel and sand is. I get 10 yards of crushed rock delivered every other year to spread on my driveway.
I have put 20’ long PVC on my SUV. I would not want to put a 20 foot 2x12 on it.
I doubt that you can even purchase 20 foot long pressure treated 2x12. They stock that stuff a Lowes?
20 foot long pressure treated 2x12.? I might be able to special order something like that, but I know I couldn’t pick it up at a Lowes in this state.
2x12s? 20 feet long? Pressure treated? On your Volvo? Good for you if you actual did find this bizarre piece of lumber, and managed to get home in one piece with you and your car intact.
Yes, that’s exactly it. One large vehicle serving the needs of two families instead of one. There’s no need to have TWO big vehicles on the roads just for the maybe once a year that we borrow the truck for an 80-mile round trip. (I might add that it’s a regular full-size pickup, not an SUV.)
Thanks for reiterating my point. Not owning an SUV does not equal not being able to “take care of” oneself and one’s family. It IS possible to survive and even thrive without one.
As for the discussion on snow, we live on a very rural road that’s usually one of the last to get plowed. Yet we’ve managed for years with small cars and trucks. Snow driving is a technique to be learned, and you can do it without 4WD/AWD. Mr. S used to commute 100 miles round trip daily, mostly on back roads, and he often got to work before all the guys with their big 4WD trucks who lived right in town. Used to pass Jeeps in the ditch all the time. Some drivers do not seem to understand that four-wheel drive does not equal four-wheel stop on an icy road, and that the laws of physics still apply to them in bad weather – even more so with the extra weight of their vehicles.
My last post was a bit harsh. Please accept my apology,
My house is at 11,200 feet in the Colorado Rockies. Well above any town in the US.
We know snow and bad road conditions. We are the only full time residents on our county road. I went before the BOCC last year because it looked like they might take us off the plow route.
I have a plow truck. But it just isn’t big enough to do the whole road. I was considering an old UNImog so that we would not get stuck here.
Both my Wife and I drive over the continental divide every day.
I guess when someone says they get bad weather, I should just smile and nod. That’s a bit hard to do over the net.
Where I live, 3" of snow is a ‘little bit’. I have lived here for 11 years and have never missed a day at work because of snow.
In fact, I will be using 4x till May. Every day. Then it’s mud season which is a different ballgame completely.
Yep, I need a vacation. As luck would have it. I’m leaving in 2 weeks.
And before you ask, yes it real, no this isn’t photoshopped, yes those are fully equipped cars, and yes Volvo has done this demostration many times in many places including the LA Auto show about 10 years ago.
Neh, I’m not worried about the weight, It just doesn’t seem like it would be very safe. I guess if you strapped it on well enough it wouldn’t make any difference. PVC, 2x12 whatever.
I have had 8 sheets of plywood on my roof. And lots of drywall as well. Not exactly light weight stuff.
I don’t doubt that you can haul 2x12s on your roof. I was a bit surprised when you said it was a twenty foot pressure treated one. I don’t think I have ever run across that.
It looks like you tried to put the ‘wally’ smiley at the end of the post. I’m not sure what it looks like, so I’m not to clear on what you mean.
Enipla - not like we are on the sublect anymore anyway…but do they/can they even plow up where you are? I remember driving through CO in January a few years ago and they said parts of I-70 were closed west of Denver because of now…do they stop plowing at a certain time?? BTW, my Avalanche 2500 loves the snow! and I bet a Hummer would too
Yes they do a respectable job. They use articulated graders and sometimes loaders, not trucks. There are only two other houses on our road and we are the only full time residents, we are pretty much last on the list when it comes to road maintenence. I have my own snowplow to take care of my drive, I have also plowed the road a number of times. I prefer not to though. I don’t want the county to think I’ll take over their job. And it’s pretty hard on my truck.
A big problem is ice damns. When culverts get blocked, water will flow out on the road and freeze. Makes a real mess, and has gotten to the point where it is nearly impassable.
Last year, road and bridge suggested that they may stop plowing secondary roads. I don’t know what the heck they where thinking, this would strand thousands of people. In any case a few personell changes where made, and they are doing the best job they ever have. I think the commisioners slapped them pretty hard.
**do they stop plowing at a certain time??**No, sometimes, they just can’t keep up with it.
I guess I should be clearer. They do use plow trucks on the paved roads like I70.
I70 does close due to weather. Usually a couple times a year, sometimes due to an accident, avalanche or just plain nasty weather.
Driving in to work this morning was pretty nasty (I don’t have to deal with I70 the majority of my trip is a 2 lane state highway). It was a little warmer than usual, I’d say about 18degrees f. The closer it gets to freezing, the slicker the snow.
Enipla, if you live at 11k feet, you’re obviously not to be used as an example of a typical SUV owner… I don’t think anyone’s saying “nobody should own SUVs”.
But if you guys spent some time in a city (Toronto and Vancouver are excellent examples in my experience), you’d realize how many soccer moms and bling-bling somputer programmers there are driving around in these things. And if you see an H2 in Toronto, you can be sure that the only thing it’s being used to haul is women.
Of course people should be allowed to have SUVs. Of course many people get a lot of use out of them. The fact is, though, that more often than not they’re entirely unnecessary. I yearn for the days of the Volvo station wagon fifteen years ago.
Another good point (that’s been brought up already) is that SUVs are not held up to the same environmental standards that cars are most of the time. A slightly related story is how Chrysler managed, through some technicality, to get the wee PT Cruiser classed as a truck. Of course, it has much better mileage than any other SUV/truck they sell, and it lowers the average mileage of their production class so that they can make their other large vehicles gas guzzlers and get around the environmental laws.
I had to go to a specialty lumberyard to find two pressure treated 2 x 10 x 26 footers I needed for an arbor. Even with the roof supports max lengthened on a Cherokee I still looked like an experimental NASA design on my way home. No way a car could have delivered them without permanent damage.
Point of curiousity - I hope folks can tell from my previous posts in this thread that I am not anti-SUV, but I will admit to being inclined against conspicuous consumption.
But can we all agree that the Escalade is the bastard child of the auto industry that deserves to be mocked and ridiculed? If that car cannot be scorned for just pure excess, is there any car that cannot be so labeled? (That is, short of a gold car with 23 inch platinum rims, a 16 liter engine, a diamond-encrusted Sirius receiver, and a ten gigawatt sound system?)
Well, the Escalade is not my cup of tea, but it seems like most new vehicles have at least an option for leather, fancy stereos, electric windows/locks/seats. Heated seats. Adjustable pedals are getting more common too. My Wifes Grand Jeep has all those things, and it’s not even an up-scale model.
It looks to be about the size of the other big SUV’s. It’s just a Caddy. I just assume that the owner is a Cadillac enthusiast. Brand loyalty runs pretty deep sometimes.
Are you talking about hybrids like the Toyota and Honda. They both have 4 cylinder piston engines.
And I don’t think that either is turbo-charged. I doubt it would be efficient to turbo an engine that starts and stops a lot.
I think you are confusing ‘Turbo’ with ‘Turbine’. Turbines are used on planes; helicopters and I think the M-1 tank uses one. There were some experiments in the 50s and 60s with turbine cars, but they didn’t pan out. As far as I know, no one offers one today.
