New House Blog: Episode XXXXIII - Deck The Blog

This Episode deals with the replacement of our house's deck, or balcony, as some might prefer.

Decking The House

Our New House's deck was in bad shape.  It never collapsed under the weight of Becky, Bish, the 3 cats, or any combination of same, but it was obviously deteriorating and visibly pulling away from the house.  Termites had had their way with much of the wood and one main support beam was bowed.  In addition to the rough condition of the wood, there were several holes in the house where the pre-Bishopians had attempted to connect the deck's railing to the house.  The railing connection methodology was apparently this: poke a hole in the stucco, try to screw the wood to the stucco with a wood screw.  But wait, there's more.  The deck's ledger had been incorrectly attached to the house and it was not at all sealed to prevent moisture entry into the walls.  Here are some pictures of the old deck.

 It may not be obvious in this picture, but in-person it was quite obvious that the ledger was pulling away from the house.  Please note that the large gap between the deck planks and the house was made by me.  I pulled up the 2x4 nearest the house to assess the damage and to apply some silicone caulking as a temporary water barrier.

This is looking along the ledger in the other direction.  The DeWalt in the picture was used to recover some very nice wood screws from the deck railing.  I believe that some of these wood screws were used in the construction of my workbench (seen in this Episode).

 This picture shows some of the termite damage and some of the damage to the stucco.

Railing and ledger detail

Moisture was  big motivating factor in our decision to get our deck rebuilt.  In the Bay Area it was approaching the end of the dry season and the beginning of the sometimes-rainy season.  Rain was expected in the coming weeks and we didn't want rain entering into our house via the holes that the pre-Bishopians had poked in our stucco.  If time had not been a factor my two brothers and I could have rebuilt the deck ourselves, but time was a factor so we called Rob from Full Frame Construction and got the ball rolling.  He and his crew came out, demoed our old deck, built us a new deck, patched up the holes in the stucco, and removed all of the old deck debris.  Here's a picture of the debris pile.

This is what the house looked like with the deck removed.

 At least they used some kind of flashing.

 Zooming in a bit on the innefective flashing.

Zooming in still further allows us to see some of the holes in the stucco where the deck used to join the house.









Up next are some construction photos.

 A good deck needs a good foundation.  This is one of the two new deck foundations.

 This picture shows the new, beefy ledger, which has been properly anchored to the house.  It also shows the new, beefy support beams.

The deck support structure from a different angle.











The next step is the finished deck, as seen below.

 There were actually several stages of construction between the support beams going up and the deck being finished.  Sadly, we failed to record these intermediate stages, so this is what there is to see.

This is the same deck, seen from a different angle.

Rob recommended a composite material for the decking and rails, and we agreed.  The ledger, support beams, and support structure are made from pressure-treated lumber.

This shows some of the detail of the new deck.  The color we chose is Lava Rock.  It is a darker color, and it seems to match the rest of the trim on our New House.

Satchmo and Daisy are enjoying the new deck.

Happy Cats

In these two photos you can compare the old and new decks.

The old deck

The new deck

A few rains have come and gone, and as far as we know no new water has gotten into the walls.

A good foundation is the key to
     bIsh

New House Blog: Episode XXXXII - Artifacts, The Universe, And Everything

As foretold in this Episode, we are devoting this entire Episode to an examination and exploration of artifacts discovered during our Back Yard Archaeology excavations.  On with the show.

Artifact Extravaganza

Here we go.  We start with this innocuous-looking string.  It was found near the famous sand pit in the back yard.

Next we move on to this innocuous-looking length of electrical tape.  I do not remember precisely where it was found.  It's possible that it was found attached to some of the romex in the buried conduit in the back yard.

Onward we go with this collection of miscellaneous materials.

I'm not sure what some of this stuff is, so I just lumped it all together.











I found several pieces of this yellowish foam.  Aliens and pirates would not likely have a use for it, and I don't know where it would go on a hot tub.

Also unknown to me is where these plastic sheeting fragments fit in.  Could they be the skin of some alien spacecraft, or some alien?

Here's some more plastic, this time in the form of miscellaneous hard pieces.

I think I recognize a couple of pieces in this pile.











This pile shows us that the pre-Bishopians had knowledge of metal and metal use.

Also made of metal are these nails, bolts, and screws.  Again I am forced to wonder why the pre-Bishopians used so much rusty metal.  Did they know something about rusty metal that we don't know?

Not made of metal are these small colored beads.

We have found a lot more beads than these, but they are hard to keep around.  The seem to roll away quite easily, and because of their small size they are often lost.  We have found blue beads in addition to the greenish and white, and they have been found all over the back yard, and a few have been found inside the house.  Were they used for trade by the pre-Bishopians?  Were they part of some kind of pirate cache?


This artifact combines metal and plastic.  It appears to be related to modern swimming pool apparatus, which might tend to support the hot tub theory.  Or it could be part of an alien spacecraft; because of its fragmented state there's no way to know for sure.

One of the more surprising finds was this old CD-R.

 From this we can tell that the pre-Bishopians had access to inferior technology - it's only a 650Mb CD.

It appears that this disk has data written to it, but it is too far gone for us to probe its secrets.  Perhaps it contains a treasure map.  Perhaps it contains a map to the aliens' home planet.  We'll never know.


These ancient timbers are either from support posts for a hot tub or they are from an ancient pirate ship.

Lending credence to the whole pirate theory are these shell fragments.  Shells are typically found near the sea, and pirates typically sailed on the seas.

What kinds of animals are these bones from?  Our leading theory is that they were from food animals, such as chicken and pork, but there are a couple of mystery bones we know nothing about.

What kind of animals are these bones from?

Any information about these two bones would be greatly appreciated.  It's possible that they were left behind by the aliens.







Our only monetary find, to date, is this coin.

 It appears to be made of red plastic, and my research shows that it is likely from an ancient cash register toy set.  I have not yet determined its actual cash value.

The most numerous artifacts are, without question, these blue tiles.  I will let you all know when I have re-created the mosaic that was composed of these tiles.

Finally we have this chunk of asphalt.  Or is it really a meteorite?

So many artifacts, so little
   bIsh

New House Blog: Episode XXXXI - Into The Fire

Fire.  Scourge of Prometheus! Toaster of marshmallows!  Eradicator of deadwood... - Sideshow Bob

I love a good fire.  I can sit and watch a good fire the way some people can sit and watch The Simpsons on TV.  After the flames all die down I can sit and watch the hot coals glowing the way that hot coals are wont to do.  I love the heat that fires provide.  A good fire can warm a room or an entire house.  I love the warm, comforting atmosphere that a good fire provides.  Why does fire fascinate me so?  I don't know, but I'm glad we have a house with a fireplace - a wood-burning fireplace.  I love the crackle of burning wood, the sparks, the smells, the combusting of the wood that makes the fire.  I love the hot, glowing coals that are the after-effect of a good fire.  I love a good fire.

We'll talk more about fire later, but first let's meet some new team members.

New Team Members

Our first new team member today is Reggie, our lawn edger.  Reggie is a standard manual lawn edger, with an edging head that can be adjusted to one of three different edging angles.

Next up is our transfer shovel, Squarehead.  Squarehead is a standard square-headed transfer shovel.  You may have noticed that our shovels have names based primarily on their physical attributes - Longstaff, Shortspade, Scoop, Squarehead.  Becky does not understand the need for multiple shovels, but I have tried to explain that each shovel fulfills a different function.  I have been transferring a lot of dirt during my Back Yard Archaeology excavating.

New Recycled Workbench

We have a new workbench in the garage.  It is completely composed of recycled materials.  What this means is that each part of the workbench was previously in use somewhere else in the house, or else was found lying around somewhere inside or outside the house.  The base and support structure of the workbench used to be the vanity from the downstairs bathroom.  Here's a picture of it before removal from its former position, as seen in this Episode.

We deemed that this structure was sound enough and sturdy enough to work as the base of a small workbench.

The top piece, the actual work surface, is made from plywood that used to be part of the subfloor in the kitchen.  Some of the subfloor in the kitchen had to be replaced because of water damage, and a couple of the removed pieces were in good enough shape to be reused for non-flooring purposes.

Here is a picture of the old subfloor of the kitchen before it was repaired, as seen in this Episode.

The 2x4 used as the back board of the workbench was cut from a random 2x4 we found lying around outside the house.  It's a good piece of wood, so we kept it for future use.








Here are pictures of the completed workbench.  It is small, and the plan is to use it only until such time as we have built a larger, even more useful workbench in the garage.  In the short term, however, this will suffice.

No nails were used in the construction of this workbench.  We used wood screws that were reclaimed from other parts of the house.  We have recovered a lot of good, useful wood screws while fixing things up around our house.

Into The Fire

You may recall that in this Episode we had our fireplace and chimney inspected and fixed up a bit.  We decided that the time had come to have our first fire in our fireplace, since it finally stopped being summer here.  Before we could fire up the fireplace we had to get a new self-feeding grate, new fireplace tools, and a new fireplace screen.  We also had to check the Bay Area Air Quality Management District's website to see if it was okay to have a fire on the day we wanted to have a fire.  So far there have been no Spare the Air days declared, and we hope to be able to have many fires in the coming months.

Here is what the fireplace used to look like, as seen in this Episode.

Here is what it looks like now, with a good fire burning inside.

How many figurines can you identify?

The self-feeding grate helps to keep the heat level high and the smoke level low.  So far our fireplace has not been smokey at all.

Does anyone know how to clean old soot off of brick?

       bIsh