gearhead_318

iTrader: (1)

Welcome to the 21 century.

Vashthestampede

iTrader: (17)

Updating this bitch with some recent progress pictures.

Unfortunately, I didnt get down there with my camera before the pads were poured. As you can imagine though, they're tied to the bottom mats with plenty of rebar. This is where the 3 main tanks will sit when all is said and done.

The vertical mats are getting tied as we go and the forms are going up quickly now that the piers on the far side are done. Lots and lots of rebar in this thing, but its nothing we haven't done before. Just takes time. When you do it right that is.

I'm staying home today to get some work done on our website and I hope to get some type of featured work in progress page up for these pictures I've been taking. The big job in Greenwich I referenced earlier is BIG, and I want it. I'm talking job of the year big. So I want to get these pictures up so the guy I've been dealing with can check out our work for himself. I gave him the estimate already, but I'm hoping to seal the deal with some nice pictures of how we operate.

Current progress as of yesterday.

Vashthestampede

iTrader: (17)

I spent HOURS yesterday working on the website. Sitting in the same god damn place all day long!! lol

Choosing Joomla as my platform was probably a mistake, but there's no chance of me switching now that I have invested my time into it. It just takes me SO long to figure out something so basic. All in due time I guess right.

Looking for some input on how the site currently sits. If you have a second and can just do a quick click through I'd really appreciate it. This way I can see if anyone has any issues with how its displayed, errors, etc. I still have a long way to go, but as it stands I have roughly 20 hours invested into it. That includes everything from setting up the account and creating the template to uploading the pictures and text.

I like how I go from being the mechanic covered in gasoline on Monday to the website guy on Thursday.

http://connecticutfoundations.com/

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

Waaay too much data on the front page. If it takes a 12mbps/sec connection a significant amount of time (several seconds) to load your (static, non-video) front page, you got problems.

Vashthestampede

iTrader: (17)

Really? Its taking a long time to load?

Is it possible its from the pictures?

FRT_Fun

iTrader: (19)

Yea it took a good 10 seconds to finally load the last image... which was the banner.

bikersam717

iTrader: (5)

Yea it's the pictures. Maybe use one of the work in progress pictures and have a link to the page that has all of them laid out. Down have them all laid out like that on the front page though.

DontPassTheFence

its definitely not the worst joomla site Ive seen. For someone with your knowledge, it shouldnt be a problem. There are much worse content management systems out there, so ya did good.

I agree though, less pics or at the very least compress them a bit more.

just looked; yep 1MB is too big a file size, its the internet dude you can spare some jpeg artifacts because 99% of people looking at your ---- dont even know what a jpeg artifact is.

Vashthestampede

iTrader: (17)

Thanks for the input guys!

I was actually wondering if that would be better having the featured jobs page separate. Considering the job isn't even finished yet, it still has lots more pictures to come. I think I'll work on that today.

The gf went to her parents house to go shopping with her mom and sisters, so I opted to stay the ---- home and do what I want. lol

My knowledge is only limited to what's out there to teach me.

Lots of youtube videos, tutorials and some plain old experimenting got me to where I am on the site. I'm glad to hear its not half bad.

When you say compress the photos, do you mean just make them smaller? Or when it asks the % of the quality they display, lower it? I want them to look good and if they're too small you cant see the details I'm trying to showcase.

If you cant tell I'm not exactly well versed in the lingo.

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

That's off of one of your pictures. That is a very good indicator you goofed somewhere - you should never be seeing a photo over twice the size of what is being displayed without very good reason.

Vashthestampede

iTrader: (17)

I wonder if it's doing that cause I uploaded larger sized pictures, then re-sized them using the editor in Joomla. Somehow keeping the same file size though??

My dad told me he had the pictures I didnt to complete the series. It was bothering me that I didnt have the pictures of the pads, but now I'll just have to put them into the mix.

DontPassTheFence

To expand on what blaen99 saudiid: Those the 2 mistakes most first timers make with joomla or any other CMS (content management system).

Just edit the photos better in photoshop first, resize them to the proper size, then compress, then upload. Your displayed size is fine, just need to lower the quality on each image to get those file sizes down.

Vashthestampede

iTrader: (17)

I haven't had time to work on the website since I last touched it. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to get the newest pictures uploaded, fix the sizing issue and make the featured section its own page. That's the goal at least.

These are the pictures from when we pumped the walls this past week. 45 yards with every square foot vibrated twice by yours truly, and every truck's slump tested before we poured it.





































We always do the entire perimeter about 75% of the way up, using the majority of the trucks to do so. Then its on the last truck that you need to fly around the job to top everything off. I usually choose to walk on top of the forms when I'm vibrating, just because it gets too crowded on the scaffolding with all the braces in the way.

The forms aren't coming off until either today or Monday, so I've yet to see how it turned out, but I'm more than sure it'll look ****.

Ohh, and just for you MT

Vashthestampede

iTrader: (17)

I spent about 8 hours on the website today. I fixed all the pictures and added all the rest that I hadn't uploaded yet.

Now I'm going to start working on my metadata keywords and ----. I figure there's no point in spending all this time on it if people cant find it.

The page seems to load MUCH quicker now, as all the pictures are now 1/4 the file size they were before.

Still lots to do but its better than having nothing. Thanks again for the constructive criticism brohams.

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

Your homepage is too big, condense it. Too many pictures, too much text. Now that it doesn't take ages, I get overwhelmed on load by the pure amount of information. That's too much for a landing page.

Move text and pictures to another page, or just remove them entirely.

Vashthestampede

iTrader: (17)

I agree 100%. The next step is to make a separate featured article section to house all the pictures and text. I want the actual homepage to be nothing more than a few pictures with a quick description about us.

Hopefully within the next few days I'll be able to get that part sorted out.

Thanks for the input Blaen

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

That gets a +1 prop.

Vashthestampede

iTrader: (17)

What a bro!!

At first I did MT.net with a dick and ***** under it, but its going to be there for awhile so I changed my mind and redid it. lol

Vashthestampede

iTrader: (17)

Update to share some new projects with you guys.

Work has pretty much consumed my life lately. I've been doing everything from the hand digging all day to putting the checks in the bank. I'm officially the main contact for the company which is a great promotion, but the stress is intense. I think about work 24/7.

Our schedule is so booked I've been turning down GREAT jobs. We had the chance to do a 3 story storage building (250'x100') right down the road from us but I had to turn it down. We're already committed to some crazy big **** so there's just no way we could get it all done.

I have work lined up from now through December and I'm working on filling up January-March. As we speak we're doing a estimate for a 85 unit development for April-May. Just overwhelming when I think about it.

Anyways here's what we're currently working on.

Finished this one last week, still have to pour the slab though. We had this one turned out in just under 2 weeks.















This is our main project at the moment. 7000sqft house with 12'-16' high walls filled with rebar. The deep pit you see is going to be the theater. The house has like 6 bedrooms, a butlers suite, elevator, theater, spa, etc.

We started this one almost a month behind schedule due to ledge. They blasted the **** out of the hole but its a tight fit. Once we finish the house we need to go back after they dig out the porches (which wrap around the entire house) and back again in the spring to do the barn.















The Hurricane fucked us up a bit. With so many trees and power lines down we cant get the pumps or mixers to the job. Luckily we've have a few jobs to bounce around from so we can still keep busy.

Hopefully we can keep this busy from here on out.

NA6C-Guy

iTrader: (1)

Are there no guidelines to follow for bank reinforcement? If that house is as big as you say, then those loose walls look pretty tall and ominous. Hard for me to tell by the pictures how things are scaled, but in some places it looks pretty vertical. I would be a little worried about a cave in, but you guys may have taken all precautions and feel good about it. Don't turn your back on it either way. I've known and heard of too many people being killed by walls of dirt or rock collapsing in on them and burying them alive.