Colder than Boulder

An early cold spell hit last weekend, to the point where we went 2 days without a temp above freezing. Good news is that the pond withstood the freezing without any issues. I did take out the pump to prevent ice damage, and realized that I'll need to be able to easily remove the pump from the skimmer box after the skimmer box is installed permanently. I plan to drain the pond by the end of this month.

I've been building the list of materials I'll need for the railing and outdoor lamps. We have a 10% off certificate for Lowe's and I plan to get everything at once to take advantage of that. But otherwise I've been working on neglected indoor house projects. And this cold spell is a reminder that I need to spend this coming weekend doing the annual winterizing of the house and cleaning of gutters. Sigh. So, not likely to get the railing done by hallowe'en, but I'll still try.

Safety issues and replanning outdoor work

I mentioned briefly in the last post that on September 20 I fell off a beam when working on the south ramp. I bruise my hip, primarily, but also the area under the left armpit. It was a careless fall, done with my hands full of planks at a time when the work for the day was near completion, and I was tiring. However, at the time it seemed minor. I was able to complete the work that day and catch a business flight to a customer city that night, barely noticing anything was sore.

After I returned from the business trip Tuesday night I continued with the plank work, as described in the previous post. By Friday I noticed a chest pain. I was worried it might be an internal organ so monitored closely, but suspected it was muscular. By Sunday night, after I'd completed the planking and the setting up of the clay pathway on the south end of the ramp (which required a lot of digging and moving dirt via wheelbarrow) the pain was worsening, but I was now sure it was not an internal organ.

On Monday evening I moved a bunch of heavy flagstones (which we'd been given for free by a neighbor) to see if they would work for the pathway (they didn't fit, color-wise) and my chest ended up in such deep pain that I took a leftover painkiller from my last hospital visit 2 years ago.

On Tuesday the doctor confirmed my suspicion -- I'd cracked one of my left ribs in that fall on September 20. He also suggested that the initial crack probably wasn't too bad, but all the heavy work I'd done since had caused it to become much worse. The only solution is to take it very, *very*, easy for the next month or so.

So, I've since been learning what does and does not hurt the rib. I can lift some things -- up to 10 lbs or so -- with the right arm without trouble but have to be very careful with the left. Stretching or reaching usually has bad consequences -- typically light at first but then heavy pain 30 minutes or so later. The worst immediate pain is a heavy sneeze or cough. The doctor cautioned me that people with rib conditions are susceptible to pnemonia because they tend to control their coughs to avoid the pain, and thus don't adequately clear out their lungs.

Yikes. So this naturally means my outdoor construction plans for the rest of 2009 will be curtailed quite a bit. Fortunately my father and the kids have offered to help. In fact, today my dad and my son Daniel pitched in to help clear those flagstone I mentioned before and to put on some of the more tricky remaining redwood siding on the south ramp. Meanwhile, the kids all helped by doing all the lifting and cart-pushing today during our monthly "big shop" at Target. With their help the rib was fine all day.

Still, plans are being modified. My wife and I had already talked about moving the location of the planned gazebo from next to the pond to the other (south) side of the front yard for aesthetic reasons. Due to this injury I'll just formalize this change with the homeowners association and also move the completion date to the late spring. Also plans for any additional paths are moved to next year, as are plans for outdoor electrical circuits. All these mini-projects involve a lot of digging, which seems to be the worst activity for the cracked rib.

I will, however, finish up the bridge itself, with family help, and hopefully this month. There is a little more redwood siding to add, then the whole structure needs a second coat of stain for a really polished look. Then railings and, as a special feature, low voltage lamps at the top of each railing post. These won't be solar powered. The solar outdoor lamps are easier to install, as they are standalone, but the wired lamps are easy to switch on and off, which is a feature we want. I will create the low voltage circuit and wire it up to a transformer on the front porch, but won't make it a full circuit with switch and breaker until next year.

In some ways this can be a good thing. I mean, it is getting cold, making outdoor work less fun. At our elevation it's already started falling below freezing at night, which means I turn off the waterfall at night. So finishing up this month has it's advantages, and it also means that I can get re-started next month on the iNdoor layout.

However, this experience just re-emphasizes how a single micro-second of carelessness can have consequences that last a very long time. It's a lesson we all know but tend to forget. In recent years I've intentionally trained myself to be very conscious of this fact. For example, before starting a power saw I explictly remind myself that a single mistake with this tool can cause me to lose a limb permanently. For the table saw, which is by far the most dangerous, I more or less "shout" this mental warning to myself.

I did the same thing when I started to walk on the beams on the south ramp. However, at that key moment on September 20 I was tired and in a rush. I wanted to reach a project milestone by the end of the day, but also knew I had to pack to fly out that night for business. So I pushed myself and was getting a bit tired. And, for an instant, got careless.

I had a very similar thing happen to me under similar circumstances about 4 years ago and thought I'd learned my lesson. Obviously not. In the future I'll try to sense when I start rushing and will force myself to stop and think before progressing.

This mistake really wasn't so bad. The family has been terrific in support. And I have more than enough other stuff to do, so mostly the consequences are that I rearrange some planned tasks while I heal. But if I let myself be careless again the next mistake could be far more severe.

Planking the south side ramp

Planking the stairs was straightforward. All planks were 2x6 and 41 5/8" long. As before, the planks were stained in advance so that hard to reach, but visible portions of the planks would get stained. And as before 3" deck screws were used -- 8 per plank (two for each stringer). Here's how it looked (unfortunately a bit blurry):



After it dried we walked on it and fortunately it was completely solid with no hint of squeaks or sags.

For the rest of the south ramp the planking needed to accomodate the curve of the ramp. For the north ramp curve I tried alternating regular planks with planks cut diagonally, so that the planks curved with the path. This worked, and looks okay, but I thought the overall appearance could be better if the planks around the curve fanned out, each plank being of similar dimensions.

I measured and thought and thought and measured. The south ramp curve, unlike the north, was of an irregular shape due to the stairway. I finally concluded that I couldn't determine a single, optimum plank shape but could come close. I decided to get a bunch of 2x6x10 redwood planks and use the table saw to cut them diagonally (after the first one is cut, half of it can be used as a brace alone the table saw fence to guide the cutting of the remaining planks). Then I would trim them to fit the ramp. I cut about 13 such planks and tested them on the bridge to see if the idea would work. The results, as shown in this September 20 photo, were promising:



What this showed was that there was enough space for the diagonally-cut 2x6x10 planks to provide for a nice curve.

(Unfortunately, shortly before I took this photo I accidentally fell while walking on the unplanked beams. The injury would seem minor at the time, but would end up having a major influence on the progress of the project for the rest of 2009, as I will describe later.)

Once this was confirmed I bought two more 2x6x10 planks and cut them diagonally, as I needed just a few more to complete the curve. Then I selected the top of each cut plank, sanded the cut sides so that they resembled the other pre-sanded side, and stained each one. While I was doing the sanding it finally occurred to me that most planks could benefit from some topside sanding, either because of imperfections in the cutting process or because of lumbermill marks that needed removal. I should have been doing that all along, but have now incorporated a sanding pass for all redwood going forward.

While this process was going on I began adding 2x6 redwood to the outer sides of each beam, just for looks.

On September 26, the next Saturday, I put the rest of the north side planks down. On the 27th I created the edging and put down the fabric cloth for the clay path that would adjoin the south ramp. The result is shown here:



The process of installing the south ramp planks was much slower than for the bridge or the stairway. I started at the bridge end of the ramp. Each plank had to be put into place with spacers (two screwdrivers that were about 1/8" wide) then I marked where to trim the ends of each plank on the underside of each plank, using the edge of the substructure as a guide. Each plank was thus cut to fit and installed before the next one was put in place.

On the side of the ramp opposite the stair case there is an area where the edges of the planks form a nice curve. For this area I first trimed the planks to be several inches too long. The after all planks were in place I drew a smooth curve connecting the straight edges and used a jig saw to cut the curved edge.

Where the planks meet the staircase I had to do things slightly differently. First, I realized that when I put the plank on the top of the staircase I'd completely covered that beam -- meaning that the staircase beam was not available as a support for the diagonal planks. This was easily solved by screwing a short 2.6 p.t. board on the inside of that beam, where the p.t. board would provide the support to the planks. Second, because the diagonal planks bordered the top-of-staircase plank, I had use a ruler to mark the cutting line on the top of each diagonal plank, using the staircase plank as a guide.

In the end it all worked out. The final 9 planks on the ramp were simple 2x6s cut to 46 3/4" width. There had to be some slight adjustments in the placement of each plank to keep the whole curve flowing properly, but those aren't perceptible.

One potential issue that turned out to be a non-problem was the fact that the slopes of the beams and joists varied, and I had some concern that this might create some awkward spots where diagonal planks crossed beams/joists with different slopes. But it turned out that by using my weight to hold the planks down when putting the screws in, and by carefully choosing which joist to attach to first, the planks would firmly attach to the base underneath while naturally forming slope transitions.

The end result has worked very well. Visitors have uniformly commented on how appealing and solid the bridge looks -- both form and function. Here are a couple views of the work so far from different angles:





There is still a lot of work to get done. Some parts of the ramps still need to have redwood panels applied to the sides underneath the planks, and the whole structure needs a second coat of stain to polish it off. Then railings need to be added with a special feature -- each railing post will have an low voltage outdoor lamp on the top. These won't be solar lamps -- they will be powered from the house with an on/off switch.

And, of course, we need to add the "red breeze" clay to the ground pathways at either end of the bridge. On the same day the above photos were taken, September 28, I hooked up the trailer and drove to the sand/rock yard to pick up the clay, only to find that they close at 3 p.m. on Sunday. I figured I'd go back Monday or Tuesday, but then something happened to change the course of the whole project. I'll cover that in the next post.

South side ramp continues

Picking up from the last post, my next step with the ramp was to install the beams. The beams are made of the same 4x6 landscape timber as the posts. The design was conceptually straightforward -- there would be beams to along the outer edges of the ramp, one across the top of the stairs, and one connecting a stair post to a post on the other side of the ramp. The implementation was going to be a bit tricky, though, because of the irregular arrangement of the posts.

One thing I decided up front was that the beams should all rest on the posts at both ends. That is, it is possible to connect a beam between two posts using only metal connectors and nails or screws to support the beam. In that case the weight of the beam rests directly on the metal connector, and only indirectly on the post. This can work, but extra strength is provided if the beam sits right on the post. In that case the metal connector's role is more to keep the beam in place, not support the weight.

Given this, 1 post would support 1 beam, 2 posts would need to support two beams, and 2 posts support 3 beams. Given that the area on the top of each post was only 4x6 (well, technically slightly more on the sloped-top posts, but not a lot more) that meant some special planning and cutting would be needed in certain cases.

This next picture shows the south ramp after the beams were in place. I'll use this as an aide to describing the construction work:



The first beam to install was the one on the top of the staircase -- in the upper right of the photo. This was easy as the posts were level and the distance relatively short, at 41 5/8". Just put the beam on top and use strong-tie connectors to keep in in place. But this beam also took up 2/3rds of the area on top of those posts, leaving only 1/3rd for other beams.

The next beam was the sloped one on the left side of the photo -- this actually went from the timber (bottom of photo) and rested on two posts. Again pretty simple. I had to trim the far end so that the post end was vertical (being sloped, the end would normally also be sloped, which would get in the way of the adjacent beams). I also had to shim under the beam at the timber end. I had to do this for all the beams as the final tamping down on that timber lowered it slightly. (When I later installed the timber at the bottom of the stairs I took this into account so that the final tamping resulted in the timber being exactly the right height.)

The next beam was the sloping one on the lower right of the photo -- similar in execution to the last one. And this was the last of the easy beams. The rest all required special measurements and cuts.

The beam that's farthest from the camera came next. This required some additional p.t. wood support on the side of the 6x6 post on the left because that post height was set for 7 1/2" beams (used on the bridge). Otherwise, though, the cutting wasn't too bad because while each side required angles the slope was nearly flat.

The final three beams had to follow a logical order -- as it turned out from left-to-right in the photo. All of these required special cuts to fit on the posts and, for the first two, to allow enough room on top of the post for the next beam. Some required shims. And two of those beams were over sized (one almost 7" tall) so they needed to be trimmed down over the posts to keep the beam height consistent.

One point about this is that the circular saw blade goes only 2" deep, but most of these cuts required going through the 6" length of the 4x6. The ideal saw for this is a mitre saw, but I don't have one. So I had to carefully measure and cut from both sides with he circular saw, then use a manual saw to get the rest. Ugh. Christmas is coming up -- I think I'll add a mitre saw to the wish list.

That last picture was on September 15th -- only 5 days after I started measureing for the south ramp. This next picture was 2 days later, after the joists were in place:



You can see the joists are pressure treated (p.t.) 2x6 lumber, the sick green of the p.t. joists very distinct from the brown of the landscape timber 4x6 posts and beams.

Two double joists (that is, a joist using 2 2x6's together) were used where other joists would attach to them. One is between the two posts nearest the wall. The other is between the far beam and the post across from that. Otherwise all the joists were under 5' in length, and they were positioned so that the planks would never have to go more than 18" span between two joists. As noted earlier, wider spans can result in planks that sag.

With beams and joists in place I decided to tackle the stairs next before addressing the planks. I pulled out one of my old deck building books and started at the task. This shows the stair infrastructure on the 19th, two days after the last photo:



The first thing about the stairs was understanding the length of the steps and the height of the risers. The deck plan book suggested that deck stairs should have slightly longer steps and slightly shorter risers than interior stairs because of the nature of decks -- that people feel more comfortable with less steep stairs on a surface that doesn't seem quite as solid as, say, a carpeted floor. It suggested using one 2x6 plank for the riser and 2 for the step. I took this suggestion and measured the height the stairway would need to account for, then got out some graph paper to carefully plot out the "stringer" (this is the length of wood that supports the steps) profile. The book said 2x12 could work for a stringer, and I found 2x12 for both redwood and p.t. fir at Lowes -- $27 for an 8' section of 2x12 redwood!!!

As the width of the stairway is 41 5/8" I had a bit of a quandary. At 36" width I could get by with 3 stringers, which would result in an 18" span between stringers, which as I've said is the ideal. At 41 5/8" the span is now over 20" and that's less than ideal.

Then I considered that I really wanted the outside stringers to be redwood for looks, but redwood is a soft wood and a lot weaker than p.t. fir. So I settled on the idea of 4 stringers, with two p.t. stringers in the middle positioned to take most of the weight (18" apart) and redwood stringers on the outside supporting only a small portion of each plank. You can see that in the photo.

Cutting the stringers is not hard if you have an L or T measureing tool -- I have an L tool which is perfect for this job. Even then this is a job where precision counts. Measure numerous times to make sure each stair is even and of the same measurement as all the rest. Cut carefully -- I used a manual saw at the step/riser points rather than risk over cutting with the circular saw. Once you have one stringer done (start with the cheaper p.t. fir in case you need to redo it) and the measurements verified, use it as the template for the other three.

I used standard 2x6 joist hangers for the inside stringers and expensive ($6 per) stairway joist hangers for the outside two - as only they would fit a stringer than needed to be right at the edge of the post. After measuring I had to rehang one stringer, then they were all found to be level and even at every point.

The base of the stringers was a landscape timber installed in the same way as the timber at the top of the ramp, as described earlier. In fact, I used the other half of the same piece of timber for the base. In this picture the dirt around the timber is high -- actually too high since dirt close to redwood will reduce the life of the redwood. I removed a lot of the dirt later.

The next post will cover the planking of the stairway and the rest of the south ramp.