What's Happening Under My Patio, Part 3

Back to the patio... This post covers a lot of ground and over a week of work.
We begin with the soon-to-not-be precipice of death. Or at least precipice of minor pain. Probably not death. Certainly not as much pain and/or death as the attic's Pit of Death.Here we see some of the new supports holding up the porch. Notice, again, how everything is attached to other things.


This picture was taken really to show the new big blocks securing everything to the foundation. But it also shows how the space under the porch is already a great storage location.
Now we move on the the "New Concrete" phase of the job. This big block is what the stairs are going to sit on. Which should provide better support than....nothing.... Which is what the stairs were previously sitting on.
Here we see two areas of new concrete. The short round column will proved a base for 1/2 of the top of the stairs. And the taller square concrete is re-connecting two previously disconnected parts of the foundation. This second block wasn't pre-planed, but we ended up with extra concrete and used it to help support everything.
A nice big concrete step to help us into the storage area was also added. This step was planned, but a smaller step on the outside (shown in one of the later pictures) was also added to use some of the extra concrete.

The support beam at the connection between porch and stairs was also rotting, so it was replaced with a new one.And it's starting to look like stairs again!

That green stuff on the stair stringers is what people in the biz call "POISON." It re-treats the treated lumber where it has been sawed.
The top of the new stringers. It will be good to know that something in the house is level now. NOTE: This picture was taken while the new stringer building was in-progress. There will be more than just that 1 nail holding it in place. Yet another of many pleasant changes from before.
The hatchway is starting to look good. (notice the little concrete step mentioned above.)
The treads were supposed to go on today (3/13/08) but it is raining. So John gets some time off...

Item Number 76

Here's a short break from my attic and patio saga. This picture was taken at the National Museum in Victoria, BC, Canada.



I don't know if this picture is supposed to be funny or scary. If you were to ask, my answer would be "yes."


So, a couple weeks ago I showed a picture of an exploded truck, and now I have a booklet on how to deal with incendiary bombs... I guess my silly blog just made the FBI watch list, huh...

Hello, Mr. or Ms. FBI person: Don't be scared of me, just because my blog contains the phrase "incendiary bombs" which triggered your text-scanning computer. I'm just showing the public that it is possible to deal with difficult issues, like incendiary bombs. Just look at the full title of this historical short booklet. Don't be frightened of me. I'm not out to get anyone. I pay my taxes. In fact, my taxes are paying your salary while you to read this. They also helped pay for the text-scanning computer that brought this whole false-positive-alert to your attention in the first place. In that way, you can think of me as a hero, really. I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of my congratulatory FBI metal and/or plaque. (I'm sure you already know the address.)

What's Happening Under My Patio, Part 2

Demolition happens fast. This was all in a morning's work. And, for the most part, the pictures speak for themselves. Enjoy... Note the support (or lack of it) for the stairs.

This brace was like that (not touching the far stringer) before. That isn't a result of the demolition.

So, the top of the stairs were resting against a 2x4 that was nailed onto the side of the deck. Excellent.

In this section, we will delve into the subtleties of the 'floating beam.'

It is a trick of the angle at which this picture was taken, which makes it look look like it comes anywhere near the insulated wall. It doesn't! The fact that it doesn't is demonstrated by John's hand around the end of the beam. (And will be shown in great detail below). Be sure to notice the 2x4 nailed along the bottom of the large beam. This is what is creating the 'notch' that the angled 2x4 is braced into.

In this picture, we can see the gap between the main beam and the 2x4. Two nails are holding that 2x4 to the beam--one on each end. (Who'd need any more than that?)
Here we see a close up of the bracing. This angle shows the 'gap' between the beam and the house better than the previous picture. At best, that is a single nail or screw holding the angle brace in place. You can see it angling upward out of the big beam. I'm not really sure where it begins. It may not be attached to the angle brace at all, becuase nails are for chumps!
Here is the bottom of the brace. Again, nails are for chumps. And so there are none to be found here. Who needs nails when you have gravity on your side?

By 11:00am the stairs were gone and the trash was out. That hatch in the back (from the picture yesterday) is going to be enlarged into a small door, and we're going to have lots of great storage under there. Alice is pretty excited about that.

Here's where it went. (I have to enjoy it now, becuase it goes to the dump in a couple days.)
And there you have it.

What's Happening Under My Patio, Part 1

Just when I thought things were almost done...
Along with the attic structure, we put toegether a couple of "minor" jobs that John could do while he was here. One was to install a whole-house-fan. That went just fine, and we will be grateful for it in the summer. Another was to put a security screen door on the back door--again, we'll be grateful for that in the summer. This one ran into a few minor snags, but generally was ok. Then we needed to add a railing to steps on the front porch as well as open up an access pannel (and vent) for under the front porch--as it was completely sealed...
Since it would be easier to do the hand rail if there was access under the patio, the access hatch was cut first. And thus, the can of worms was opened...


You'll probably want to click this picture to see the enlargemnt for full effect. There's a lot here. The first thing we noticed was the big pile of trash. That green thing is an old trunk or suitcase which actually has old clothes in it. There were a bunch of newspapers lying around. We found a date on one of them and it was from the 1970s. (Maybe 74?, I can't remember now.)
The next things you should notice are the two big support beams. The near one is at least touching (or nearly touching) the support columns on both sides. Although the left side of the near beam is only supported by a couple nails, apparently. The far beam--in classic "my house" fasion is being supported on the left only by that angled 2x4 wedged against the end of the beam and the corner of the foundation. Nice!
The stairs (rear center) are difficult to see in this picture but the technical term for them is "Pretty ****'ed up."
The angled "support brace" in the center of the picture is notched into the stringers (the angled wood that provides support for stairs) thus greatly reducing the effectiveness of those stringers. The vertical brace in the exact center of the picture, which is supporting this agled thing is set on this little wooden 'bridge' built out of non-pressure-treated wood which is sitting directly on the ground.
The last thing to look at is the wall on the right hand side of the picture. At some point over the past 100 years, the foundation has sunk a little and this wall was shimmed up. This in itself is pretty normal and not a bad thing. Except that they didn't bother to line up the shims with the support columns...
What does all this mean? It means we're getting a new set of porch stairs, some better reinfocements on the rest of the porch, and John gets another couple more weeks of job-security.

At this point, I would like to encourage everyone reading this to run onto the internet (Hey, you're already there! Excelletnt!) And buy yourself a copy of some of these fine computer programs by Headlight Software! GetRight, Go!Zilla, Lightning Download, Geek Superhero, Desktop Armor. In fact, you should buy them all! And then go to FindFiles and click on a few of the advertisments! When you're done doing that, you should be tired out, so go buy yourself a coffee from Starbucks! Thank you.

What's Happening in my Attic, Part 3

As promised, the cracked valley beam previously supported by a 2x4 and a couple nails is now supported by a huge block of steel and a 4x4. The beam itself is also sandwiched between two sheets of plywood (which is in turn sandwiched by the steel) so it should be good and strong now. Here's the other side. Steel, bolts, good stuff all around!
Here is the 'other' valley beam on the other side of the house. That light spot is where the wood had been compressed from the previous brace (you guessed it, a 2x4 and a couple nails). This will now have a shiny new 4x4 brace (which John is holding in this picture). In addition, that big center column will be supporting a lot of the weight previously supported by this brace.

Here we see the worst day of the job for John. He is putting brackets at the base of all the rafters to better attach them to the walls. If you look closely, you can see the metal bracket on the rafter. One of those for every rafter in the house. Fun fun fun.

And finally, here is what is NOT happening in my attic!

Up the street, someone else was having insulation blown into or sucked out of thier attic, and this happened: Yikes!

What's Happening in my Attic, Part 2

This was too good to wait...

Remember in Part 1, you saw the big bolt holding the two valley beams to the ridge beam that was supported by a couple 2x6's. Well, now we're going to look at the bottom of those 2x6's:

Look closely here: The enourmous column behind the 2x6s and the enourmous hunk of wood (4x10 or 4x12) that they are sitting on is all new. So ignore that for now. Look just at the three 2x6s that are nailed together. They are sitting on a horizontal scrap of 2x4 which is floating off the edge of the base 2x4. What this means is that TWO-THIRDS of this old 'support column' was being supported by....AIR! Wow.

Here we see the view from the other side. Again the big 4x10 base and the double 2x12 sandwich (on the left) just went in today! (They were going in as these pictures were taken, in fact!) Before that, it was just this floating column on the right that was holding things up.
Here is a side view of the new double 2x12 plus plywood sandwich that will be holding my roof up from now on. Note the tight fit and crazy angle of the metal/wood connection to make things strong. Yes, in this case, the crazy angle is a GOOD THING because it means that the straight and level new column fits tightly onto the old angled valley beams. That's some quality workmanship!
And an overview of the new and improved center support column. Nice!

What's Happening in My Attic, Part 1

This is mostly for my brother, Nathan. It may be of minor interest to a couple other people, but probably not...

The title is not any kind of cryptic metaphor. It is simply that there is stuff happening in my attic. Here's what:

First, here is my attic. It's messy and gross, and generally not a fun place to be.

This is John. He gets paid 'the big bucks' to spend lots of time in my messy attic. He also gets to make it a much better attic which will be much (MUCH MUCH) less likely to fall down and me, Alice, or the rest of our house. Thus keeping the attic where it belongs--out of sight and mind! John is also a pretty good poker player.

Here is a fine example of some of the shimming that John gets to do. Notice the 1+ inch gap between the rafter and the ridge. That is now filled--and then the 2nd rafter (behind) is added to further secure the connection. These are both good things!

Here is the biggest single problem in the attic. This is a "valley beam" which is cracked and currently supported by a single 2x4 and a couple of nails. In Part 2 you will see something better supporting this.

Here we see some more shims and a shiny new big bolt holding things where they should be. The support column will be improved in Part 2.

More shims and another look at the big bolt.

And again... Notice how everything is touching now. Like those angle (valley) beams are touching the ridge beam. It wasn't that way before.

Another look at the cracked valley beam and 2x4 support column. The next time you see this, there will be a big metal bracket on the valley beam with a 4x4 support column. That will be nice.
Finally, this is the "Pit of Death." It has nothing to do with the attic structure, but I thought the world should know that my house has a "pit of death." This used to be a chimney, bit it is now a big hole where additional kitchen could have been. If one were to fall down this hole, they would go through the main floor entirely, then break the ceiling of the basement and land in the laundry room. The foreground is an old water tank--I think.
And there you have it. "What is happening in my attic" part 1. Hope you had fun.