Home Improvement Today?

We love Costco so I’ll have to check those out.

I love the Chukka style without having to lace up any time coming in and out of the house. I’ve never had a work boot like this so I’m excited to see how it is. I’ll have to check out Duluth.

 

...and on today's episode of the Laundry Improvement thread ...

lol

 

This deck is done, until next year. Except for painting the posts.

 

Nice!

 

Listen I use my boots for home improvement so it’s close enough haha.

 

Here I’ll add some relevant updates too.

Rebuilt a garage wall including sill plate from a leak and blown out drain pipe from the previous owners. Turns out the entire flat roof drain system wasn’t working at all. The pipe buried in the backyard was broken and instead of being repaired they just blocked it off.

Also slowly working on a redoing the first floor bathroom. Total gut.

 

Here’s some laundry improvement haha busted through 12” block, 8” block and brick to make it a whole ten feet outside with the vent and drain. love my concrete house, makes everything super easy to work with

 

Working on another project before the weather turns sour. Then I’ll switch back to my office and the barn.

This is the start of my 4 cord wood shed project. Most wood sheds are built on flat ground, but unfortunately I don’t really have any, or at least it’s scarce. With that said, I did my best to design a shed that could be built on a slope along my fence. It’s being built on deck footings and 4x4’s. Finished dimensions will be 16x6x6 (4 whole cord) with the shed roof sloping from 7 ft to 6 ft.

Here’s the footprint and the deck footings laid out:


I figure by using deck footings I can just vary the length of the posts as the yard slopes and the deck itself will sit level. Here’s the end of day 1 (took most of the day to gather lumber):


I have all of the posts temped in place, plumb, and my deck framing is scribed onto the posts ready to cut. I was only able to get one done before it got dark:


I really wanted to get 2 thru-bolts per board in addition to the notches, but after looking at the amount of meat left after notching… there’s no way in hell. If anyone has a suggestion on how to fasten it securely I’d appreciate input. Maybe just some super fat 3.5” timberloks?

 

Add a 1x4 face trim? W deck screws so it looks clean?

 

3/8" GRK RSS screws

 

Oh nice. Looks like they sell 3 1/8” in the 3/8” RSS. There’s only 1 1/2” of material left in the 4x4 after notching, though. Think I can slam 4 3/8” in it? Since the beam I notched I assume the screws aren’t taking much of the shear force.

 

So on the play structure I used T nuts with the little claws and 1/4" stainless bolts. For a 4x4 w notch you'd be able to do 3.5" hex stainless from the inside and T nut the outside, or vice versa, or countersink and go 3" or 3.25" if you want to get super tight. A perfectly sized hole for the washer makes the countersink clean, I used some oil on the cut parts. Then the T nut hammers in and it's all super stealth at the cost of visual on the attachment. If it gets loose, slap the wrench on there and tighten it up.

I have some extras from that if you want, all stainless of course. Not sure on tensile strength but as you say, these shouldn't be holding weight.

I still prefer a nice 1/4 faceplate so it'll look beautiful and hide the notch, even finishing nails ought to hold there, it's making a sandwich and the notch is transferring load.

 

I do hope you have a stencil/pattern so all the joints have the holes in exactly the same spot, eyeballing it will be dinged one star by me when I visit.

 

I've got some contractors working on a 3 season room for me, they are about 1/4 of the way through the process. So far so good I am impressed with their work. All aluminum capping is now done, they are working on the wall channels tomorrow. I did the electrical rough in for the high hats and fan, and tore out the old soffit sealing, but leaving it to the pros to do the sunroom, those type of companies don't take orders from residential folks lol

 

the RSS screws are pretty good at self drilling , 3 1/8" are likely enough , as you say the vertical load id taken care of in your notch

alternately they also make 5/16" GRK RSS is other lengths or even the GRK R4 screws would work . I like the RSS for what you are doing though because they have a 'lag' head

 

Oh I’m purposely using the most sporadic ADHD fastener pattern you could possibly think up.

I saw the 5/16” at HD today. Just checked online and it looks like they don’t stock the 3/8” in the 3 1/8” length . So 5/16” might be the only choice if I’m going with RSS unless I custom order. My main concern is driving 4 of those RSS lag replacements of any size into only 1 1/2” material. I feel like I’d just split what little bit is left after the notch.

 

you can predrill them to the unthreaded shank size as a precaution

 

Got off the ground today. Thanks @OZ-T for the GRK RSS suggestion. I slapped a set of 2 5/16x3 1/8” RSS into each notched post. Then hung all of my floor joists. After that I notched the outer posts for my outer rafters, cut the top of the posts down at the right height/angle, and then sandwiched another rafter on the other side of the post. Roof pitch is 2:12 (slopes from 7 ft to 6 ft over a 6 ft span). I figure it’s okay for a metal shed roof with no snow load. Added an extra set of rafters so the final layout is roughly 48” OC.


Question is… do I add another set of footings front and back? So 4 more half way between the posts along the rim joist. Not entirely sure it’s necessary but couldn’t hurt? Idk. It might be a waste of energy.

 

Id put them every 4' especially since its wood shed

 

I started to redo the landscaping in my backyard. There's a 3x4ft sand section that had some bricks around the edge. I found a ground rod maybe an inch under the surface. Haven't dug it out yet but any idea what it would be used for?