Yesterday (Wednesday) I spent the morning doing drywall on the living room of the Big House, and then made a run to San Rafael to pick up more. Muggs arrived in the afternoon with his big truck and tools, and attacked the upper section of the deck.
When I got back in the evening, this was what I saw--top rails ready to stack for de-nailing and milling, and the other stuff ready for the dump.
Speaking of ready for the dump--this was the state of the posts on the low section of the deck, closest to the ground and fastest to rot. Evidently once he had sawzalled out the rails and tops, these posts just basically fell away, the bolting surface completely rotten!
That hunk of joist is the consistency of dry sponge or maybe Shredded Wheat...
As I mentioned yesterday, one has to plan a little carefully to avoid chopping off the limb you're standing on. Here Muggs is removing joists after I have cleared the light circuit.
In a section like this the demo goes fast, as I can use a big prybar from the ground, and this particular bar has a rubber covering that cushions the wood a little, allowing for pretty serious leverage without dinging the soft redwood. Following along with the sawzall after raising the board a quarter inch means quicker work and less damage...
We had to decide how long to save the stairs--they're a handy platform but once we had removed deck boards close to the house, their usefulness was remarkably short-lived.
Both of us were pretty whacked by this time, but we basically dusted most of the demo--still another day to clean stuff up and remove the existing ledger (such as it is) and get ready to strategize about the next phase. I managed to lug this pile up to the badminton court but that was about my limit.
Watch out for that first step--it's a doozy. But seriously, one of the issues we need to figure out is the placement of the ledger board: as you can see, the threshold of the door / floor of the entry are three inches above the deck level, and there are floor-joist ends exposed. One of our goals is to make this more structurally sound--it all starts with the foundation / connection to the house, as Muggs says.
Small tornado hit. No, we just got fed up at the end of the day and flipped the stairs into the garden, realizing that this particular can of worms (filled with philips head screws) did not need to be dealt with right now!
Tomorrow we clean up a bit, expose the ledger area, and prep the area for piers. There are some exposed pipes and drains that we may want to protect, and a little care here makes the rest go faster and more safely.
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