Daniel Bourke and Joe build a pull-up bar in Daniel's backyard for about $680 total, including a $260 hole-digging service and materials from hardware stores. They dig two one-meter holes, set treated posts in concrete, and bolt on a 32 mm steel bar, saving money compared to $750-$780 yearly gym fees.
Chapters
Just finished our first workout on the homemade pull-up bar. Took us just under 25 minutes to do 100 pull-ups. Pretty wrecked from it.
With some variation.
Some variation, yeah, not strict form the whole time. But nonetheless, pull-up bar works. And yeah, so now we got a pull-up bar in our backyard forever. What'd you learn, Joey?
Mate, I learned measure twice, cut once.
That's it.
That was the biggest lesson.
So our bar's a bit crooked. But it does the job. All right, now we're going to go through what it costs in total. So, Joe, you want to get the calculator out? So we'll start off, cost us $260 to dig 2 holes. $260, that was the most— that was the heaviest expense. And we got a receipt from Bunnings for $40, $41. And then we got one for $63, and then we got one for $54.30. $17.
Pretty much round up to $420.
Yeah, $420. Pull-up bar in our backyard cost us $420.
Let's see gym fees per year.
Gym fees about $750 per year.
$780 minimum.
Nonetheless, I'm going to show you how we did it, what we did, and using it for the first time. Hey Joe, you know what I feel like doing today?
Is that true?
Building a pull-up bar.
Ain't that what we doing?
Yeah, we are. Let's turn this down a bit so we don't get copyrighted. All right, Joey, what are we doing today?
Mate, we're building a pull-up bar.
First things first, we've got to call the council to find out if we can dig in our backyard though. That might fuck up the whole plan. Yeah, let's do that.
I don't see why they would say no.
Welcome to Council. This is Brittany.
Hi Brittany, my name's Daniel Bourke. I'm just looking to, uh, dig some holes in my backyard to build a pull-up bar, um, and I thought I'd call this number first.
Yeah, no problem. Have you used our service before?
No.
No, I'll just explain to you how it works and we can take it from there. And would you be digging by hand or using a machine?
Machine.
And when would you like to start doing this?
Uh, as soon as possible.
Okay, so what I'll do is I'll put in the start of today, um, with an ACCP for you to get those plans on their way. Thank you.
How long do you expect that to take to complete at the very latest? Uh, like, it'll be like an hour. It just needs to be 2 holes.
Oh, okay, no problem. Yeah, maybe I'll put finish by Monday then.
Will you be doing it this weekend? Uh, yeah, we were even hoping like today, but what I'll do, I'll just put finishing on Monday just in case. Yeah.
Um, and it's in the backyard, you said?
Correct.
Yeah, okay, no problem. And was it the same address in Sutton Avenue?
Yeah, that's it.
Okay, no worries. Um, from here, the plans come straight to you from the utility anywhere from now to 3 business days, but I will put an ASAP in that for you as well.
Thank you.
Right, all done then.
Perfect, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Okay, bye-bye. If that doesn't come through, she's gonna do it anyway. So we called Dial Before You Dig. Good news is it was going to take up to 3 days, but they sent the files out pretty quickly, so we should be able to book in this dingo or hole digger, whatever. Let's just hold this. Hey Roger, it's Daniel here, how you doing? Thanks Daniel. I'm just wondering, I was onto the phone to one of your colleagues before. Oh, it was actually Roger.
Sorry, Roger, it's Joe. I called you like 20 minutes ago or half an hour ago. Spoke about the two holes in the backyard.
Yeah, yeah, we were just looking to, um, to book that, that dingo for, uh, for that $260 you quoted us before.
Yep, no worries.
Yep, probably that, that would suit. Um, at 1:00? 1:00 sounds perfect.
Thanks, fellas.
All right, see you then. Bye. Hey, hole digger booked in for 1 PM. Let's do this. Joe, where are we?
Tradies Mecca.
The Mecca for tradies. Nah, just here for the sausages, away. All right, so we've got to get two 2x4s, metal bar, some screws, concrete, and some buckets. I mean, sand apparently. Potentially a, potentially a snag. If I was into hardware, I'd be frothing right now. If, if— look at this setup. What do I need? Wood. Wood. We found it. We got lots of blue long sticks. We need a really long thick piece of wood, if you know what I mean.
Oh, other side.
Hey, will they have one long enough for us? That looks pretty damn long, Joey. All right, so here doesn't have what we need. We might have to go to the next store. We need a bigger hardware store, even though this one's not big enough.
All right.
So the first hardware store we tried don't have what we need. So if in doubt, try again.
Plan B.
No, there's no point having a Plan B because it takes away from Plan A. Will Smith. So we're just going to go to North Lakes Bunnings and just run with whatever they have. Sausage sizzle smells good though.
Fucking hope, but a burrito sounds better.
Yeah, we're going to get a feed. We made it. Round 2 at the Mecca.
Round 2, 2.
For tradies. Go. Mecca for tradies. Here we go, 3-meter steel pole. Concrete acquired, pull-up bar acquired. Joe, what do we need? Timber, brah, timber. Got wood, got wood. So Bunnings didn't have what we need. So we're going to try a timber yard. We've got the screws, all we need is some post holes dug and we're good. Third hardware store of the day.
Fucking made it.
We've been to 2 Bunnings, Costco, and now we're at a timber yard. Hopefully they have some posts.
We should have just come here first.
They got a lot of wood here. Got wood. We got them. Finally found them, the posts we need. So we just got 2 wooden posts. Fucking— how much were they, Joey?
$54.
$54.
We were actually expecting to pay, what, $40 a meter?
At Bunnings, we were going to pay $400 for 2 posts, hardwood posts. Narangba Timber. Hit them up if you need some wood and you're in Brisbane. Fuck yeah! Otherwise it doesn't really help. So this was the most expensive expenditure of the whole process. 2 holes, $260. But I mean, they were dug perfectly, and that would have taken us a lot longer than what the dingo could have done it in.
Good son!
Step 1: pole through pole.
Pole on pole.
This is pole on pole. Step 2, we're good. Hole through here and get a bolt through. Lucky we got our tradie friend here. Thanks, Jack.
Rats!
A whole lot of mixing concrete. She bit out, but it's done. Joey, she bit out. Oh well, done is better than perfect.
Done and perfect.
Many workouts to be had off this, boys. Many workouts. She better work, that's for sure. We'll see, we'll see how it goes in 24 hours. All right, so what do we have here?
Day 3 of our pull-up bar erection.
Hilarious.
Well, so far we've got 2 treated planks, bang bang, meter deep in the ground each, concreted with a 32mm steel bar between the 2. Bolted in place. That's about it really.
