Tips For Building a Deck

Deck Out Your Backyard This Season

With winter finally over and the weather becoming nicer with each day, Canadians like to get outside and make the most of the sunshine.  If you’re lucky enough to have a home with a yard, you may be considering building a deck this season.  Here are a few tips for building a deck, and some things to consider for the project:

1. Plan first, then build.

Decide exactly what style of deck you want to install and make sure it’s going to work for your space. How many levels will it have, are you going to install a gazebo, hot tub, pergola, where do you want the stairs to be, etc.

Planning the project first helps prevent potential mistakes or problems down the road. Ask a professional for their opinion on your plan. Doing this every day, they know what works and doesn’t and can offer ideas you may not have thought about.  Also, make sure to find out if you need a building permit in your area before you start construction to avoid potential fines / having to remove what you built.

2. Cedar or Pressure treated

Pressure treated is substantially cheaper than cedar but doesn’t last as long or look quite as nice.  If you go pressure treated, let the wood completely dry for at least a few months before applying a stain or water repellant.

Tip: if you want the look of cedar but are on a budget, try framing the deck with pressure treated wood and then capping it with cedar and using cedar deck boards.  It gives it the cedar look but with some cost savings in the areas that you won’t be able to see.

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Feature image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Summer Colds Suck

If you've been following on Twitter (@stevebaric1), you're probably already aware that I owe Paul a Chinese dinner.

Yes, I missed a workout. Actually, I've missed several; but not without good reason.

Last week when my parents were down, I ended up busier than I expected to be. That's not much of an excuse, mind you, but it turns into one when you have less than a week to tackle projects, keep guests entertained, watch your toddler (who you've taken out of daycare so she can visit her grandparents) and spend some time with your girlfriend...all while your air conditioner is completely broken down during one of the worst heat waves on record.

Add to that the fact that I do my TACFIT workouts at home instead of a nice air conditioned gym, and you can see a picture emerging. Plus, the Man Cave isn't finished, so I ended up sleeping on a love seat in the living room.

Add sleep deprivation to the whine list.

I know, I know. If I was really a tactical operative I would still have to train under harsh conditions. I suppose I could have gotten up at 5 a.m. and done the work outside.

Um. No.

So then (oh, it gets better), both my girlfriend and I wake up Friday morning with sore throats. By Saturday we both have something like a cold; her's knocks her flat, while mine is just starting to move into congestion as I write this.

Too bad. The problem with getting sick at the same time is you can't blame the other person for making you sick. Where's the fun in that?

Anyway, the a/c was fixed on Friday, so that's a plus. But as I explained to Paul, it's not easy to do a hypermetabolic workout when the indoor temperature is 92°, the relative humidity is 88%, and your head and chest are so full of goo that you get winded scratching yourself in bed.

Solution: write off Mission 2 and start it over again on Monday. That will give me time to recover my lungs, get the basement finished, and refocus my efforts on my long-term goals.

Assuming, of course, we don't suffer another major disaster in the meantime. Excuse me...I need to find some wood to knock. And down another Advil Cold & Sinus.

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Reno Update

Things are definitely moving along in the Man Cave. In a matter of a few days, the crew got the wiring roughed in, the pot lights installed, and the drywall up. We're just waiting on some mud and tape.

So we went from this last week:

To this, this week:

Lookin' not too bad, huh? The cove you see at left is where the TV will be mounted. It sits right between two support posts, and frames the wall just nicely. Here are a few more for comparison:

That's the TV nook with nothing in it. A few points of interest: First, the outlet is on the back side of the wall, in order to have all the wiring go behind the theatre. Second, the two posts were framed out to provide a flat working surface that won't interfere with the flooring (there's a concrete footing at the base of each post that would otherwise cause a headache.

Without too much explanation (I hope), these should give a clearer idea of what the entertainment space will look like:

 That little hole you see in the TV area (roughly centre on the pic) is actually just marking out the cold air return. The one at top right is for a switch that will kill power to the whole home theatre. You may not realize this, but home electronics use 60% of their power when the device is turned off but not unplugged. Don't believe me? My TV has a red light on it to tell me that it's off. OFF?! How stupid is that? Since I don't need that light, or an internal clock on my TV, VCR, DVD, or home theatre receiver, the simple solution is to cut the power to the whole system when it's not in use (you can do this with a power bar as well...you will see a drop in your hydro bill. It's kind of scary, actually).

So...what's next? Picking out the laminate and paint colours, of course. And the plumber will be in early next week with a jack hammer to carve out the floor for a sump pit. You see the far alcove? The pit will be behind that part of the wall, hidden from the rec room side. With luck, they'll find gravel under the floor so they don't have to dig any trenches.

Yeah. Jack hammer. This'll be fun...

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Holy Shit! Ninja bugs?! (that's rad!)

Bugs don't really bother me, as long as they stay in their place. The ant problem has been documented already; although the fact that they're coming in the front door now just proves their persistence. But there are others.

For instance, I've had swarms of little drain flies, especially down in the basement. But rather than attempt some sort of control, I just left the spiders in the laundry room window. Four spiders, to be precise. And they're doing the job splendidly. All I have to do is dust up the corpses.

The recommended treatment is foaming drain cleaner -- in this case, probably in the wash basin drain, since that's the only open drain in the area. I may get to that yet, but we'll see how the arachnids do first. If they get a little too big I may have to sell them as pets too.

But the real news was this little doozy. I had no idea what these things were, but they have a strange cockroachy aspect to them that I wasn't willing to trust completely. On the other hand, I've only seen four or five a year (if that) since moving into this house, so I didn't want to go on an all-out cockroach assault without first getting a positive ID.

I submitted some photos to Pest Control Canada, which has an identification page with advice from retired entomologist Ed Saugstad. I found out that this is something called an "assassin bug," most likely of a variety known as the "masked hunter."

Wait a sec... "masked hunter?" "Assassin?" Holy shit! Ninja bugs?!

Yeah, that's pretty rad. These guys eat other bugs, so apart from the fact that they can get a little nippy if you mishandle them (apparently not if you lance them with a toothpick though), I see no reason for alarm; at least not until they start appearing in swarms. Let's face it...a lot of predators means a lot of prey, so if there are lots of these assassins there's probably lots to feed on, and that might be a different problem altogether.

There's more info HERE of course (would I leave anything out?).

But seriously...how badass does a bug have to be to have a name like that? Assassin. Masked Hunter. Sounds like a cool name for a movie. I'm off to write the script. Meanwhile, here are a few nifty details:

• They're about 3/4 of an inch long.
• They're solid black in colour, with a wing cape that looks cooler than anything Marvel could come up with.
• That beak you see is like a laser-guided insect destroying death ray.
• Someone else mentioned that if I did have cockroaches, I wouldn't for very long with these guys holding down the fort.
• They're called "masked hunter" because the juveniles (get this) camouflage themselves with dust and lint. OMG! it's like some kind of stealth mantis thing!
• If I had a Volkswagen, I would totally name it after this bug.
• Chuck Norris is only alive because the Masked Hunter Assassin Bug allows him to live!

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Wow...Persistent

Seriously, pavement ants are persistent little bastards. I managed to kill off the colony that was trying to infiltrate the basement but they started moving in again along tbe crack between the driveway and the foundation wall.

More poison. Take that!

Then today I opened the garage to pull out the barbecue. Big Paul was over, so I decided to 'cue up a pork tenderloin with a homemade sauce (recipe to follow).

There, in the cracks of the concrete slab were those damned ants again! This was a new colony, as I had never seen them in there before.

Normally I would just let them be. But my research (I'm a serial researcher when it comes to these things) tells me that ants of this type can develop massive colony networked with multiple queens. Better, I think, to not let them get into that habit!

More poison!

Here's what went into my bbq sauce:

• Sugar (3 spoons)
• Olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar
• Worcestershire sauce
• Dill
• Garlic powder
• Onion powder
• Pepper
• Salt
• Ketchup
• Hoisin sauce

Sorry, no measurements. I just tasted as I went along and adjusted accordingly. Whip it up with a fork, brush it on your meat, and you're good to go.

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Summer Project #3: Reno Update

Well, it's been an extremely productive week for the reno guys working on the Man Cave (capitals intended...muahahahaha!). I'm surprised actually at how quickly it's come together, considering other projects I've seen that just sort of drag on and on (and on and on and on...).

It's gone something like this:

Monday: Demo. Pull everything apart. Start framing (needed 2 new stud walls installed on the exterior block to accommodate proper insulation).

Tuesday: Finish framing.

Wednesday: Frame the stairway wall with 2x2 studs and insulate with styrofoam).

Thursday: Electrical. Discard old wires (apparently quite a few that weren't attached to anything), rough in boxes.

Friday: Electrical. Finish installation of pot lights, switches, outlets. Fix the goofy mistake (I wanted to wire the home theatre behind the wall and put a switch in the rec room...they faced the outlet into the rec room and put the switch on the back side of the wall. Huh?). Install insulation and vapor barrier.

Yeah! So we have lights and the work is almost done. What's left?

Well, the drywall for one thing. They're also going to cut in a sump pump, although I personally think that's a complete waste of time and money. This was the first flood in this basement in 50 years. The insurance company insists though, so we're stuck with it.

Kinda stupid if you ask me.

Flooring goes in last, of course, and I'm just getting started in picking the finished floor. Here's a tip: Don't fall for good prices on laminate without first finding out what the cost per square foot of installation is. Got it? That can easily double or triple the price of your floor.

So, for the weekend it's moving boxes again...this time away from the partition wall so I can get stuff set up for the TV installation!

Mmmmm....TV.

(Yes guys, pictures are coming soon!)

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Argh! Ants in the basement!

As I posted, the basement reno is underway. Unfortunately, I have a bit of an ant problem.

Crap.

They don't appear to be pharoah ants, which is a good thing. But they are getting in, which is a bad thing.

The first bunch popped up about a month ago. Just a few little reddish guys in the living room. I eventually traced those to the outside, where they were under the threshold of the patio door. I thought that a bit weird, since there's nothing for them to dig in back there. I hit them with some Drax, and that seems to have done most of the job.

Then I spotted a few in the basement. Not a great sign. A quick outside inspection shows they've been digging along the space between the foundation and the driveway.

I was going to use this recipe for an easy poison using borax and sugar. But when the walls came down in the basement, I got a new surprise. Under one of the windows there's a nice big gap where they seem to be getting in from the outside. Argh!

So, it's off to HD to get some spray foam and fill that gap. Then I'm going to dust the whole perimeter, and end off with some tasty boric acid bait. Hopefully this will do the trick.

And if not...Orkin!


Update: I picked up some Ortho ant traps as well, just to see. Those use boric acid. Rather than the dust or powder, which is just an earth product that cuts their little bodies to shreds (but doesn't kill the queen), I got a dropper and a sprayer of poison. The dropper I'm using around known sites, while the sprayer is giving me coverage around the whole perimeter of the foundation. I did fill the gap under the window with some expanding foam, so that should do the trick there, at least to keep them out. The battle rages on!

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The Basement Reno Starts

Back in March I had a flood in the basement. Not a big one, just enough to ruin the carpet and throw my life into organizational chaos for a few months.
In the interim, there have been delays with insurance and getting a quote on the reno--mostly to replace the floor.
Finally I got a call from the contractor, and they're moving in today. This will be a few more, days of chaos no doubt, but at least it's going somewhere.
This is fairly extensive mind you. Framing, flooring, drywall and some electrical too...not a small job. So before you jump on me for not manning up and doing the work myself, remember I'm just one set of hands. We'd be pushing Christmas by the time the painting got started.
These guys are a team. They'll be done in two weeks or less.
The one part I'm not thrilled about is installing a sump pump. The insurance company insists, even though this is the first time this basement has flooded in 50 years (and it was caused by a clog in the city's storm sewer, not from any fault in the basement itself). But if it has to be done, I guess it has to be done.
Now it's just down to waiting for my man cave to get put back together.
I hate waiting.

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