Building the deck

[Gramps' shop]

I'm recovering nicely from last weekend's deck building exercise at my son' s north Wisconsin cabin. With the good advice from you guys, we decided to build it on piers rather than attach to the cabin. This necessitated 18 n otched posts sunk to 42 inches. We reserved a one-man auger but when we we nt to pick it up the shop jock couldn't get it started. Found a towable Lit tle Beaver auger at the only other building goods store in town. When we g ot it to the site, discovered that the trigger that allows the bit to move to verticle was broken and spent a half hour futzing with it until we were able to put the bit in a usable position.

Never used one of these before so there was a bit of a learning curve, but we sunk the posts, secured them with Quikrete. Everything checked out level and square.

Had Menard's deliver the lumber -- 2x10s. Some 10s, some 16s and some 20s. They did get it relatively close to the construction zone, but man those long ones are heavy.

We're building about 400 sf. Finished the joist work on half of it and lai d some temporary decking. Son is pleased and I may be off the hook for par t 2, now that he knows what to do.

As for me, I'm going back to turning and small box work.

Larry

[G. Ross]

When I lived in Texas I rented a post hole digger to put in fence posts. The ground was so hard It got down 3 inches and stuck. Talk about arm wrestling! I resorted to an old fashioned hole digger, dug all the holes 3 inches and filled them with water. Next day I dug out another inch of mud and refilled with water. Took me a week to get all the holes dug.

Glad you got the hardest part done.

[-MIKE-]

I've rented power augers probably half a dozen times and have yet to get one that worked properly. Last one leaked hydraulic fluid at rate of at least a pint per hole. I got 1/2 off the rental fee for that one. I've had ones with broken/missing teeth, bent shafts/augers. Man, do those beat you up! I wish rental places would take some pride in what they do and fix their machines. I know they have renters who abuse the gear, but that's what security deposits are for.

[Scott Lurndal]

Well, it's not "Gramp's son's cabin", but here's our family retreat in west central wisconsin.

The deck looks out over the mississippi (600 ft below the deck level).

It's a big image, and a slow web site.

[John Grossbohlin]

I recall running into that problem many years ago... the solution was found in hydraulic mining, i.e., a monitor. On my scale I used a water hose with a nozzle set to the tightest stream to drill holes into the ground... it worked amazingly well even if it was messy. I did the same thing to drill a hole under a walk by putting the hose inside a piece of PVC pipe and advancing the pipe as the hole allowed.

John

[Ed Pawlowski]

That is a nice sized deck. Mine is half that size and a few years ago I replaced the PT with Tigerwood decking and it was plenty of decking work to last the rest of my life. Small boxes sound much better.

[Martin Eastburn]

Pressure washer. A good reason to buy a gas model. Blast a trench to put down a cable or place a pipe on the ground and blast out the center - add a section and keep on going. All sorts of tricks.

The worst is to dig down and find you have 200' of limestone under the house... Blast out a swimming pool.

When a rancher or farmer needs to do the task - PTO of a tractor to a auger and away they go.

Mart>> When I lived in Texas I rented a post hole digger to put in fence

[DerbyDad03]

son's north Wisconsin cabin. With the good advice from you guys, we decide d to build it on piers rather than attach to the cabin. This necessitated

18 notched posts sunk to 42 inches. We reserved a one-man auger but when w e went to pick it up the shop jock couldn't get it started. Found a towable Little Beaver auger at the only other building goods store in town. When we got it to the site, discovered that the trigger that allows the bit to m ove to verticle was broken and spent a half hour futzing with it until we w ere able to put the bit in a usable position.

but we sunk the posts, secured them with Quikrete. Everything checked out l evel and square.

20s. They did get it relatively close to the construction zone, but man th ose long ones are heavy.

laid some temporary decking. Son is pleased and I may be off the hook for part 2, now that he knows what to do.

I have the exact opposite conditions. I live on a hill about a mile from on e of our Great Lakes and an attached bay. My property is pretty much all sa nd. Great for digging, sucks for lawns.

I can dig a hole 48" deep with a post hole digger in matter of minutes.

When I buried a 55 gallon drum for a dry well, I started with a shovel then switched to my shop vac. As you know, as a hole gets deeper, you need to g o wider in order to get the shovel full of dirt out. By using my shop vac, I was able to "shave" the sides of the hole to keep it just wide enough to slide the barrel into the hole.

I did the same thing when I buried our Pug under our fire pit. With a coupl e of extensions on the shop vac hose, I can go pretty deep and keep the sid es of the hole almost perfectly plumb.

[-MIKE-]

I thought I was the first to think of that!? :-) My wife thought it was funny that I used the shop-vac to get the last amounts of loose dirt out of the post holes for my Sharn.

[DerbyDad03]

What's a "Sharn"?

BTW...I also use my shop vac to clean the leaves from under and around the plants and bushes in SWMBO's gardens. It sure beats crawling around, picking them out by hand.

[-MIKE-]

Great idea on the leaves! A Sharn is a building that's too big to be a shed and too small to be a barn. :-) Last Summer....

[DerbyDad03]

Well, I gotta admit your sharn sure doesn't look like this definition of sharn...

[-MIKE-]

WOW!! That's new to me. I had no idea it was an actual word.

Although it makes what my friend calls it even funnier. He says, "What that short for again? Shitty barn?" :-D