Pellet heads!! What's up today?

I finally got around to cleaning the Accentra today so it's ready to rock , the p 43 will be next , just hope we don't have to fire them up for another 8 -10 weeks sorry Skeeter

 

Grew the cucs, onions, and sweet green peppers in it.

ETA: There are 4 rather good sized spaghetti squash curing. Had matters,onion,green peppers, and carrots from the garden in the salad to go with beets and that slab of London broil for supper.

 

Skeeter can wait on the burning.

 

Inspections???
We don need no stinking inspections....

 

X2

 

USAA can and did a house insurance inspection. First time ever for them in 28 years. Took a while. Lots of questions, measuring, and photographs. No word yet form the company if it will cost me more or less now.

 

I'm thinking it didn't happen.

 

It happened alright!!

 

This is a hard bunch to deal with. Mostly grumpy old men with a visual fetish who never grew up.

 

You are always overdue on the deep cleans.

 

Trying to catch up on much needed outdoor house repairs... Arrrrrrgh

A while ago my tenant that rents my lower level (Apartment) mentioned that one of the beams overhead on the deck had some big cracks in the side.

I took a quick peek and it seemed to be just normal weather checking.

I had planned to replace the deck tread surface as the cedar treads were pretty sad looking.

Decided to forgo the cedar at $25 each for 12 footers and go with pressure treated 2 x 6 that were half the cost and last much longer.


So I get a batch of the PT lumber and get after the job.

Right off it became quite apparent that there was issues to deal with.
The original decking had been buttoned up next to the siding and the years of water laying between the treads and the siding had caused some damaged areas on the siding.

Short of tearing the deck off (12 feet up and 6 foot X 50 feet long) and replacing the siding and the deck I decided after inspecting the walls for serious interior damage (none found) I had some special flashing made to lay in on top of the header board and come up the siding 12 inches.

The weather has been very dry and hot so I cleaned up the area and treated the entire length of the siding and header with a product called "Through the roof"

Gooped up about 6 inches from the header board to seal it good.

Laid the flashing in on the header board and then the new treads on top of the flashing.

The flashing has an extended drip flange to keep water from laying on the header.

Back to work.

Start ripping out the old treads and installing the flashing and new PT treads and after a period of time I happened to notice while taking a break and sitting on my butt that the area over the cracked beam (mentioned earlier) had sagged a bunch

A good close inspection revealed that the beam was not just cracked, but was in terrible shape and needed to be replaced.

12 feet in the air ARRRRRRRGH

The immediate issue was to get a support under the area and get things leveled up.

I made a jack using a 4 x 4 post and drilling it in the end and the adding a steel angle with a 10" threaded rod to act as a jacking bolt.

Sweeeeeeeeet
Things are back pretty close now.

The biggy is getting the old beam out and the new one in.

Originally the deck was built using a scaffold to locate the framing and then they added the treads.

Decided to remove the tread over the area (Still good shape and some was replaced a couple years ago)

Going to replace the area with some 2 x 4 custom cut to allow access to the beam and be able to remove it from the top.

Going good.
Most of the flashing and new tread is installed now and to the point that the beam needs to be replaced before I can wrap things up.

What a pain in the butt.

Looks like next summer will see the other beams R&R'd...but for now just the one 4 x 10 is getting replaced.

Can't complain much, been up here in the nasty weather since 1993.

The long shot is an East West visual looking East

The Shorter run (being replaced) is North south with the Sat dish at the South East corner

A good shot of the jacking unit and some of the nasty rotted beam.

A shot of the flashing as well.

 

Huh????

 

More pix

 

She needs the heat even during the summer medical reasons. So shutting the stove down is a big issue for her.

 

Snowy I have one of those 50' second floor decks and I don't want to work on it.

 

Oh, OK......I thought maybe winter had started there w/o anyone else hearing about it.