Ready to build the deck

This week I had a lot of preparation going on to build the deck. On Tuesday, I had holes dug and concrete piers placed in the ground. I called Chubbs Post Hole and they came and dug six holes for 10" sonotubes. Their rates were reasonable, and I figured that saving my back was worth $50 per hole.



The building inspector came at 9:30 to make sure that the holes looked good; had I known that he was trying to be there right at 9:30 I would have had the post hole guys hang around so they didn't have to come back in the afternoon to pour concrete and set the brackets.



I finished putting up the flashing and siding trim on Tuesday evening.

On Wednesday, a truckload of stones arrived from Helmutz Landscaping. I had ordered some clear stone to put on the ground under my deck to at least attempt to keep the weeds at bay for a while. I ordered a cubic yard of the stuff, and they dumped it on my driveway. I spent Wednesday evening lugging it to the backyard in my new wheelbarrow.



I think the end result looks pretty good.



On Thursday, I finished with my furnace exhaust pipe. I had to extend it up to be 12" above the level of the deck to keep the snow out, so I bought a couple of joints and cut a vertical section. Last night I cut the pipe closer to the house and cemented it all in place. Now I'm ready to start cutting wood and putting it together.

Deck progressd

Just posting a brief update and a couple of photos on my deck progress. Today I attached the ledger board to the house with 1/2"x4" lag bolts. The deck is going to be 1" below the door sill, which is a bit higher than I originally expected. I discovered that the rim joist in the house is higher than I was anticipating, so I moved it up. There were a few fortuitous outcomes of this.

First, of course, it is less of a step down, which is kind of nice. I have played with several different heights, and it seems that everything from 1/2" to 7" is a recommended height, but this one seems pretty good. Our patio door is a sliding door anyway, so snow is not going to impede the door very much.

Secondly, because I chose 1", it was a nice coincidence that the guard on my circular saw is 1" from the blade to the edge, so I could cut the siding without issue. I cut most of the siding using my circular saw with a plywood blade. Apparently you are supposed to put the blade in backwards for a cleaner cut; it probably also works better if you have a steadier hand than I.

I also had a piece of siding trim which could fit under the door and leave 1" room for the deck boards. I had bought undersill trim to go there, but it is actually more than 1" thick, so it wouldn't fit, but the builder had used some kind of strip to basically push the siding out under the door. I figured that I didn't really need that anymore, and when I took it off I realized that I could flip it upside down and it was a perfect fit. It even looks decent, even though it is a slightly different colour than the other trim (I bought white, but our siding is actually a sand colour or something).

Finally, instead of building a two piece ledger around the fan vent from the basement, I was able to cut a hole in the ledger to fit the vent. The best part of this was that the top edge of the vent is actually flush with the top edge of the ledger. I didn't even plan that when I was cutting the hole.




The only thing that went wrong today was when I got out the caulking gun. I guess I don't do much caulking, because I didn't realize that there is a seal in the end of the tube. I didn't read the directions, but I figured I would just cut the end off and squeeze. So, since I didn't break the seal inside, goop came out the wrong end when I squeezed harder since nothing was coming out. It seems that all of the silicone has come off my hands by now.

After I installed the ledger, I used it as a starting point to measure out the locations of the post holes. I have scheduled excavation for Tuesday morning, so I really wanted to get this done before then. Other than that, I am going to put in some trim and flashing around the ledger, but I can't really do much else until I have concrete in the ground. That feels good.

DeckQuest: The Next Generation

Alright, I did it. This week I finalized my deck plans, after heavy revisions from last week's failure. It's still 14'x16'. It's raised up a bit, so there are four steps instead of three. But it should work. I was at city hall on Wednesday for the Transportation and Trails Advisory Committee, so that was a perfect time for me to drop off my building permit application. I just have to wait for that to be approved, and I can get to actually cutting stuff and putting something together.

Here are some drawings. Yes, I drew them myself, so please be gentle.

In the top view, you can see how far it protrudes from the house. We have chosen to use diagonally layed deck boards, because I think they look nicer. Also, the part of the deck where the steps are is actually set a foot back. That might be a bit of a trick to do, especially where the stair rail turns a sharp corner, but I think it will work out in the end.



In the side view, you can see the choice of lumber for various parts. You can also see that the rails will go over the posts, except for the corners, where I will put some kind of decorative top. I'm not sure exactly what it looks like to have a 2x6 top rail running into a 4x4 post, so I hope it is good. Otherwise, I might change it to a mitered corner. I was also wondering how feasible it is to have a mitered corner with the post sticking up in the middle of it. That's probably pretty tricky to do, and it also means that I'm working with wood about an inch thick in parts. So probably not worth it.



I know it will probably look fine, but there are bound to be things in here that I will notice and think about more than I should. I can't wait to get building!

DeckQuest Part XXVII

Denise and I moved into our house over five years ago, and we've been saying since we moved in that we wanted to build a deck. Of course, time is a factor, and our family has grown from two to five, which doesn't help. Nevertheless, I set out this spring with plans to actually build it this year, hopefully before the heart of summer.

Last month, after the Transportation and Trails Committee meeting, I went down to Building Standards and asked for some information about building a deck. They gave me a nice little booklet of information (it really is quite useful!) and a building permit application. I also have a book on decks that I received from my parents several years ago.

For those who have seen my backyard, you know that the patio is pathetic. It's pretty small, has grass growing between the stones, and before this year the steps from the back door were rickety. This spring, the steps finally rotted enough to fall away from the house completely, so there is a 2-3 foot step down from the back door to the patio. Basically useless. So there is some urgency to either (a) build the deck (wife approved solution), or (b) build new steps down to the existing patio (wife unapproved solution). Naturally, (a) is the goal.

When we first were looking at how to build a deck, the first thought was to build below the siding, where the concrete ends. It seemed like a good idea, but it means we still need steps down from the door, and the low profile is an issue in the corner near the house since the ground rises quite a bit at one point. So it's got to be higher than that. Besides, there isn't really much difference between such a low deck and just rebuilding the patio. The view would be nicer from higher up. So that leaves us with building it up by the door or building somewhere in between. I consulted my deck book.

Seeing how the deck is going to be off the ground, and given my general unease about cutting siding and otherwise damaging altering the house, I thought a freestanding deck would be perfect. The book recommended excavating at least three feet from the foundation due to the general consistency of backfill (i.e. crap), which seemed like sound advice. The deck plan had a cantilever of three feet which seemed like enough. Because of obstacles, I also thought that building about six inches below door level would be preferable as well, and a box step down from there. The dimensions worked out to 14'x14' or 16'x14', and the latter won out because the tradeoff seemed to favour a bit more deck space and a bit less yard. Anyway, it was all coming together in my head and it was time to go to paper.

To recap, I had a deck in mind which was freestanding, six inches below door level, 14'x16', with a couple of steps down. The beams would be cantilevered three feet on either end. Because it would be over two feet above grade in spots, a railing was also in order. Perfect. I went to put the plans on paper, figure out where to dig holes, the dimensions of my wood, and everything else.

Then I noticed something.

That pamphlet of information from the city had maximum and minimum requirements for several dimensions. I didn't notice them originally, because I didn't know how to read the plans. However, after having worked through my own, I was able to recognize it. The maximum cantilever is two feet. That's one foot less than my plan calls for. So now I have a problem. In order to have a cantilever of two feet, I would need to dig holes centered two feet from the house. I thought that maybe I was reading it wrong, or maybe it didn't apply to me, or maybe that if I just used other materials, or maybe ... I wrote an e-mail to the city and got back the reply that I wasn't hoping for:

We permit a maximum of 2 feet of cantilever as prescribed by the Ontario Building Code. In past cases where we have permitted greater cantilevers, the decks were often very bouncy, and the people were not happy with them.

Furthermore:

As you have mentioned, we do not like to see post holes dug near the existing foundation. Often the soil at the foundation wall consists mostly of backfilled or un compacted material, and often slippage occurs, so placing the post holes near the house is often more trouble than its worth.

And, the coup de grace:

We always recommend bolting a ledger board to the house frame, and using joist hangers from there.

Crap. So now I'm back to the drawing board. Since I need to attach the ledger board to a floor joist, it probably means raising the deck up those six inches or so, which means I'm going to need an extra step, and I'm also going to have to build around more obstacles, and ...

I just wish I had been able to read the sample plan before I drew up my own. Well, that's why you invest time in planning before you start to build.

Apple to buy Twitter?

The intertubes are atwitter this morning about rumours of Apple buying Twitter. I don't get it. Why is Apple interested in the flavour-of-the-month social network? What could ownership of the platform give Apple? Could it be integrated with .Mac? There are so many questions, but not many answers.

Annoying technology and people who should know better

So last week, my loving wife decided that she would like to get her mother (my dear mother-in-law, and fond grandmother to our children) a digital photo frame as a Christmas gift. This decision was influenced in no small part by the flyer from Staples which had arrived at our doorstep in which these frames were on sale. The one we picked out is the Kodak P520, which seems to be a nice little device, a good size, and great for grandmothers. We thought we would load a bunch of pictures on a card or something and give it as a gift.

My first thought was to go and get a USB drive, since it supports USB as well as all those media formats (SD is my personal favourite, but I digress). They also had several of those on sale at Staples, so I picked up a Sandisk 2GB number for just under ten bucks. It turns out that although it appears innocuous enough, the thing flashes bright orange when it is being accessed, which for a digital photo frame on a slideshow mode is ALL THE TIME. So that is not going to work at all. I mean, who really wants that level of annoyance from their photo frame. In the meantime, I had thought that the really smart thing to do would be to include an SD card with it, and then when we wanted to take more photos to dear grandmama, we could put them on a USB stick and transfer them in the frame. You see, the photo frame includes this nice feature which allows you to transfer between different media devices, and it has two card reader slots and a USB slot. Lots of choice.

So today I went to Canada Computers to pick up an SD card. I got a 2GB card for just over eight bucks. I was impressed. I took it home and showed it with a smile to my dear wife. She was anxious to go and pick out some photos from our collection. She managed to pare down her selection to a mere four hundred or so photos. No problem, right? The first problem I ran into was when I tried to copy all those photos onto a USB drive (actually, I'm using the bright orange one that I intend to return shortly... don't tell Staples). I couldn't quite figure out what was going on, but as it turns out, it will foreshadow what was to happen next. I got a bunch of pictures on the drive and put it in the camera and copied them to the SD card without any trouble. Then I got another batch and tried to do the same. Part way through, I got this informative message: "Create file failed." That's it. The troubleshooting section of the manual reads

Screen message	Try one or more of the following
Create file failed.	The device (memory card, USB drive, camera, etc.) you are trying to copy to is protected. See your device documentation to remove write protection. Insert or connect a different device.

Great. What in the world does that mean? I got some more files and tried again and it didn't help. Google finally found the answer for me. See, the SD card standard uses FAT16 to store the files. Why such an ancient standard? It beats me, but it probably made sense back when 32MB cards were spacious. But when you use FAT16, you can only have 512 files in the root of the volume, and less if you have long filenames (which, of course, I do).

But wait... how do digital cameras work then? Simple: they create a folder structure and put the files somewhere other than the volume root. The digital photo frame just dumps the files into the root of the SD card and assumes that all will be well. This is inconceivable to me. Kodak has been making digital cameras since the mid-1990s and they can't figure out this one little detail? Did they hand this job to the co-op (no offence intended to any co-op students)? Did they forget that people use FAT16 for this? It's as if the file transfer feature was a last-minute addition that wasn't really thought all the way through. It's a shame too, because it was a pretty good idea. Now I need to find myself an SD card reader so I can put the files on there myself.

Newman breasfeeding clinic needs your help

I received a message yesterday from a Dear Friend, informing me about a very respected Toronto breastfeeding clinic which may have to close down due to lack of funding. Those who know me well will know that I and my wife support breastfeeding, our two boys were both breastfed, and our upcoming third will be as well.

I was surprised to learn that Dr. Jack Newman's clinic is in danger of closing, with funding running out at the end of this month. Dr. Newman is "considered a world leader in breastfeeding education and support", and his clinic is in invaluable resource for parents and their little ones. The clinic has been supported by "private family foundations", but this funding has stopped and there is no more money.

I know that there aren't very many people that read this blog directly, but I have no idea how many people read it after it gets cross-posted to Facebook. Please consider visiting the Canadian Breastfeeding Foundation website and making a donation designated to the Newman Breastfeeding Clinic and Institute to help save this clinic. It's really easy to do; I just sent some money there myself and it took about a minute.