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!
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