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I’m riding in the 2025 Enbridge Tour Alberta for Cancer, raising money for the Alberta Cancer Foundation, and have so far raised $2,744, exceeding my $2,500 goal and surpassing my 2024 effort!
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Frickin' Deck...
It never ends. First it’s the damn beam being off. Then it’s all these building code issues. Now, after discussions with Chris, who was told by a Rona employeee that the builder almost certainly didn’t bolt his ledger to the house, and instead only nailed it, I’ve quickly realized that my own ledger board is only nailed to the house! ARGH!
So now what? You guessed it… I have to remove the deck boards closest to the house, drill holes and install lag screws or bolts, all of which is going to be that much more difficult because the damn joists and decking are in place. And who knows if they installed flashing (or something equivalent to stave off water). I sure hope they did, ‘cuz it’s too late now…
Update:
Well, I’ve confirmed that there is top flashing on the ledger board, there’s just no back flashing. Hopefully that’s sufficient in these parts.
Incidentally, it looks like this is a job I can safely do now. From what I can tell, the goal is to drill holes through the ledger board and into the house band board (the outside-most board that makes up the flooring). Then, drive through carriage bolts and secure with washers and nuts.
Actually, scratch that, I’m just going to use Lag Screws… less work than bolts, and sufficiently strong for my purposes.
Fun With Building Codes
So, when we went ahead with building our deck, I chose to rely on Roy to make sure it matched the building codes of Alberta. Looking back, this was probably not the greatest idea, since, if I was at least semi-knowledgeable in these things, I could ask questions and verify things as we went along.
Well, my buddy Chris has begun working on his deck, and he decided to actually read up on a few things, and now I’m starting to wonder about a few things myself. The biggest concern I have is that our lower tier is set up on 2x6 joists with an 8’ span between the two beams, and has a total depth of 12’, which means a 24” cantilever on either end, give or take. The problem is that, according to the building code, with 2x6 joists you can only have a 16” cantilever (actually, 15”, or 2.5 times the width of the joists). Whoops. Additionally, according to a safety officer Chris talked to, as of July 2005, they’re telling people to use 3 ply beams. We used 2 ply. Hopefully it’s just a suggestion…
Consequently, I think we’re just not going to apply for a permit any time soon. :) You don’t need one until you sell your house, which we don’t plan to do for quite a while (if ever… getting our armoire out of our bedroom is, I suspect, nigh on impossible), and even then, the buyer can choose to purchase anyway and the previous owner may be subject to a fine. And, I gotta say, at this point… I’m tempted to just wait it out and pay the fine.
Update:
Well, apparently Chris went and asked the Rona folks about their deck packages and conformance with building codes. Turns out they knowingly sell deck packages which don’t conform to our local building codes! Specifically, they use 2x6 joists and 2-ply beams with a 24” cantilever. How nice of them…
Enough With The Trailer Already!!
Well, after using the trailer a couple times, I became a little concerned that the surge from the old spring-based hitch might become a problem as the weight climbed (eg, 20-40lbs of rabbit litter). So I decided to try and build a hinged universal joint that would do the job. You can see what I can up with below:
I settled on shelf brackets (which are nice and rigid) mounted to a piece of electrical box cover for the hinge on the bike, and a pair of straightened brackets for the trailer arm hinge. The result seems to work fairly well, demonstrating noticably less surge than the previous design. You can read a bit more about it on the Bicycle Trailer page.
More Trailer Fun
As I mentioned in my previous post, I still needed to build a box for my trailer. Well, how better to spend my holiday monday than to do just that? Below you can see the fruits of my labour:
And, of course, a close up:
As you can see, I built it from some exterior grade plywood and 2x2’s. And before you ask, yes, it’s heavy. Probably 20lbs, if I had to guess. But it seems pretty solid, and should do the job nicely. It’s also quite roomy (40x20x16 inches, give or take), which means I can haul around even more junk!
Interestingly, while the wood was fairly inexpensive ($13 for the sheet of plywood, plus about $6 for the 2x2s), it was the fasteners which ended up being surprisingly expensive. Heck, the wing nuts which are used to fasten the box to the trailer frame were a buck a piece! But, such is life, and at least my project is complete! Now, to find things to move…
Update: I’ve summarized the project in a separate page entitled Bicycle Trailer. Catchy, eh?
