Hoisting joists, after leveling with ya

Muggs was able to seesaw the first beams onto posts after I left on Friday.  With the home-visit we had a couple of days in Inverness with Alex interspersed around some skiing and some hanging out in Berkeley, and I was able to put in some time both on my own and with my young helper.  The biggest challenge in this phase of the project is to make sure all the surfaces are as level as possible, at the appropriate levels for each one: the ledger in this case is pretty darned straight and level (which is not always so--if a house has shifted or sagged, the ledger may have to be tilted slightly, with everything matching that slope, or else door-sills won't line up properly), but we also have three different sets of beams and posts, which all have to match each other and the ledger.  Because these lines are physically separated by as much as 16 feet, and the overall size of the deck will be almost 30 feet long, a small error in any direction can be amplified to cause big problems--and even with a laser level it is super tricky to get everything calibrated.

This is how I left the project yesterday, after several hours chasing my tail getting the left-hand beam line*  level and close enough to the ledger level, as well as getting the right-hand beam line straightened and level both with the ledger and the other beam.  This process involved shortening the three short posts and re-setting the left hand beam (thanks for the muscle, Alex), and then shaving a portion of the other beam which had about a 1/2" bow to it.  Since Golden State Lumber had run out of 4 x 8" pressure treated beams, we only had two of our three pieces, plus about 8 of the short joists.  This meant that we had nothing to span the 16' gap unless we splinted a couple of pieces together and temporarily set some joist hangers so that the joist would rest on the beam and we could set a level on top.
   *Alas, I just looked again and realize the left hand beam (nearest the rose bush) is just out of the picture, as I was shooting quickly with my phone, duh.

The other interesting challenge in this process is evenly placing the joists so that one avoids the ledger bolts and sets up the ends of each run.  There's always some trial and error, with marks crossed out.   Muggs and I still have to work out some of the end details, as well as bridge the gap we left in the ledger where the main electrical drop does down the house front, along with a copper vent pipe.  Here as elsewhere, getting the heights and spacings as consistent as possible will pay dividends down the line.  I also plan to fill the voids in the siding (like the one just above the bolt and washer) with expanding foam, in hopes of discouraging the bees that seemed to be interested in those areas when the sun warmed everything up; I'll shoot in some anti-termite spray before I do so.  Fingers crossed.

I couldn't resist installing the first few joists on Saturday afternoon.  I've secured them to the beam, and--to help keep them from twisting--nailed in the blocking that I cut from the least straight of the joists we got.  The first thing I'll do when I get back up there is to scab on a ledger patch over the pipes, add more joist hangers, and add more joists.  Muggs should arrive Tuesday with the rest of the lumber, and the plan is to place some plywood and some planks on the bare joists as we progress eastward and place the last (mid-span) beam.

I'll attempt to update this using the iPhone as a cellular hotspot--at least until AT & T shows up on Thursday to install the new system (let's give wishful thinking a chance, shall we?).

Thursday--Ledger-demain

Tom made a trip back to San Rafael in the morning to buy ledger hardware, beams, and the first set of joists, while I finished up the cleanup at the Big House (removing scaffolding and attending to some naggy little projects) and began the process of drilling pilot holes in the ledger pieces where Tom had marked them.  Because we now had 6 inches of thickness to deal with, this process was, shall we say, athletic, as the bolt holes would be 11/16" in diameter.  I got in touch with my inner spelunker and spent some quality time in the relative cool of the basement working outward, but with the afternoon temperature approaching 80 degrees, we did some sweating.

With the big holes spotted, we could remove the temporarily fitted ledger, turn it inside up, and Tom could secure the spacers that will hold it slighly off the membrane / flashing.

Sometimes the big bolts go in just fine, and other times the holes don't line up perfectly, and they need a little persuasion.  Tom and I took turns wielding the Persuader.

The ratchet wrench got a workout, as did I.  I alternated between using the hand tool and wearing out batteries on the impact driver, but the result of our day's work was a level, secure ledger that is ready for joist hangers once the beams are set. 

Here's the ledger bolted in place, minus a couple of bolts on the far right because we ran short of spacers.  Golden State had run out of 4 x 8 pressure-treated beams that morning, so Muggs and I  tragically only had to shift two 16-footers from the rack of his truck to their place down the hill where he says he'll be able to levitate them onto the perfectly-cut posts.

With some bad weather coming back and some Easter week concerts impinging on Tom's schedule, I will probably tackle what I can in the way of follow-up early in the week--filling out fasteners that Tom will have partially set.  Some of this I hope will involve Alex, who'll be home for a week from school (yay!). 

To get ready for the next phase, I'll also have to attack the pile of redwood under the tarp on the badminton court, taking nails out and turning it into a stack, and then taking a saw-kerf's width off the edges before running it through the planer once or twice.  I'm hoping to be able to re-claim a fair amount of the wood we demo'd last month, and while I focus on decking Tom will be able to attack the stair placement.

Wednesday--Out on a ledger--or in!

This week with glorious weather we made big progress, although much of the first part was invisible under the house.  As Muggs had said in the original bid, there was an unknown amount of work to be done on the wall of the house, which we could not accurately bid on without knowing exactly what was behind the plywood that had been tacked onto the wall.  This is a classic "can of worms" dilemma, as builders can't in good conscience secure a ledger to mush, but they also can't get into rebuilding the entire house.   So we put in an off-the-bid day and a half, and strengthened the wall without going crazy.

The previous plywood was not structural and was not secured the way sheathing should be (there were maybe 6 nails per sheet, instead of one nail every 6-8 inches).  So after this day of work the whole wall is tied together with pressure-treated plywood--the blocking we added to fill the voids, the inner joist, and the entire wall down to the sill.

These studs in the cripple wall (that runs between foundation and the floor of a house) were undersized and beginning to decay, so we sistered each of them up with a new pressure-treated 2 x 4. .

and then to satisfy our engineering consultant we T'd up another stud at a right angle behind the studs, to link up with the innermost joist that was sort of floating there.

I don't know if I can get these side by side for comparison but this shows the before and after from the outside:

 

The new plywood will serve to tie everything together, from subfloor to mud sill; here Muggs is applying construction adhesive to the house before we place the carefully-cut plywood and stitch it up with many more sheathing nails.

To protect this wall from moisture in the future, we slid adhesive membrane / flashing under the siding above, which was loads of fun in the warm weather, but it should keep any water drips away from any edges grain.  We'll probably add some screened vents to help the dirt dry out--in the deluge things got pretty mucky (as I found out when I was nailing in the new structure from the inside!).

We're going with a 2 x 12 ledger, ripped to 2 x 10 in several places, which leaves lots of opportunity to tie in to the new studs we added.  We'll sister in a small section over the vent pipe and the electrical conduit (there was no way to secure behind those anyway, as there was a huge clot of wiring routed there). 

To the right of the electrical box, where we can access the inside, we'll through-bolt the ledger on, and to the left we'll use 8" hot-dipped-galvanized lag bolts, bigger than the ones that held the old ledger on, and running into the blocking we installed, as well as catching the lower studs.  This picture shows the initial temporary placement of the ledger, with only a few Ledger-Lok screws, so we can pre-drill the holes for the big bolts.  Then we'll pull the ledger boards off, secure the spacers, re-place the ledger, and finish bolting for good.  The far-right end of the ledger, where the deck will meet the hillside path to the Big House, will get a mini-pier of its own, and will be doubled to receive joists from the patio side as well.



With the ledger as level as we can make it, we'll have the definite elevation for the beams, so we can finish-cut the posts, secure them plumb, add post caps, lay the beams on, make sure they're level, and we'll be ready to start placing joists.  Simple!

En Niño comes on strong...

And leaves us without a lot of work time.  The good news is, the concrete has had a good couple of weeks to cure before we start putting a load on the posts, but obviously the bad news is that we were stopped pretty much dead in our tracks.  I worked on the Big House (drywall and downspouts and some re-wiring), and did some bits of site prep when the rain stopped.

Here's the corner post of the basement access door, showing insect damage.  I've cut a piece of 3" thick pressure-treated stock to replace this and close the gap, but it will be slightly tricky, as I'll need to jack the top plate up a little first, and let it down after swapping the new piece in.

Here are the voids filled with pressure-treated lumber; they'll be sandwiched between the ledger board and the first joist (which is inboard of the house wall, noted earlier), and the bolting will make the whole wall very secure.  Muggs and I anticipate spending a few hours strengthening the inside of the accessible basement space, following through on the structural engineer's recommendations.

Knowing that the rains were going to be Biblical in intensity and duration, and would be accompanied by lots of wind, I wanted to protect the seam and lower wall from water incursion, so I tucked a strip of heavy plastic sheeting under the siding and then secured it to the wall below.  It seems to have held well--though several huge Douglas fir branches swung loose from their moorings elsewhere on the mesa.

The forecast is for the rain to ease in the next week, so we're hoping to make some good progress on posts, beams and joists.  We may even have a new helper the following week, if Alex does indeed make it home from school for a visit--he's already expressed interest in helping out!

Foundation Work!

While Amelie and I were in Idaho, things kept going on the foundation, taking advantage of manageable weather.

Here are the raw materials: 12" Sonotube forms for the piers, short lengths of rebar for linking the vertical shaft to the inverted-mushroom base, and specially coated column bases that will not be corroded by the pressure-treatment on the 4x6 columns that will support the 4x8 beams.

Finalizing the layout and arranging everything so the bases line up perfectly is key to the whole process

Tom has temporarily dummied up a joist to verify heights and span and right angles, and this photo also shows how big the excavations are.  In the background is one of the old piers for comparison: it is wide, but not connected with steel, and the posts were simply set onto the bases (meaning that in a quake, the columns would likely walk off their bases).

Tom's friend and colleague Pablo had a small job in San Rafael in the morning, and then came up and cranked out the mix-and-pour in the afternoon.  Here on Friday Tom has already backfilled dirt over the mushrooms and it's time to lay out columns.

These are the rough-cut posts screw-pinned in place to verify lines.  We'll cut and fit for beams in the next week, and roll joists out soon after.

But first, we have to prepare the rest of the wall for the ledger.  This little nightmare is in the corner near the stove--Rodent / Insect Condos, anyone?