Tag Archives: fold-down ladder

2014/07/27 (N) Attic Access

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We had a long day of work today.  We were up just after 7 AM, had a light breakfast of toast, fruit juice, and coffee, read a few blog posts, and got to work.  My first task was to apply a second, light coat of drywall compound to all of the divots in the wall.

Our main morning task was the installation of the fold-down ladder for the garage attic.  It was definitely a two-person job.  Per the instructions, we installed temporary installation boards to support the assembly while we secured it in place.  The installation required one of us to be in the attic and that job fell to me.  We put the assembly on top of a plastic shelving unit to get it close to the ceiling.  Once I was in the attic with all of the tools I would need, including a headlamp, Linda slid the shelving unit so the assembly was directly under the rough opening.  It was still too far from the ceiling for me to reach from above so she placed two footstools under it.  I was then able to reach one end from above and pull it up into the opening while she lifted the other end into position from below.

We read and followed the directions carefully so we already had the pull string and T-handle installed.  That allowed Linda to move the plastic shelves out of the way, carefully open the door from below, and position the step ladder.  I dropped her the cord for the worklight and then had enough light to work comfortably.  We temporarily secured the unit with deck screws.  They were cheap screws and the heads tended to strip easily, but we got them in far enough to hold the unit in place while I installed the lag screws.

The 10 lag screws got installed through pre-drilled holes, six of which went through metal hinge plates.  The instructions said to drill through these holes into the trusses and headers, but the folding ladder hardware made that difficult, and my drill buts were all a bit short to do much.  By cutting the zip ties and partially unfolding the ladder I was able to get all 10 lag screws most of the way in with my drill.  They all had to be shimmed.  The final tightening was done with a socket and ratchet.

We took a break for lunch around 1 PM and had leftover miso soup, tofu hot dogs, and fresh apples.  I made a quick run to Lowe’s to get some additional electrical parts I needed to install lights and a light switch in the garage attic.  While I was there I also bought a baby gate for our basement stairs.  Up until now we have blocked the landing for the basement stairs with a couple of chairs when grand-daughter Madeline has come to visit.  Now that she has successfully spent the night at our house we anticipate many more such visits and wanted a more permanent solution.

The device I bought had a gate with a latch.  It was designed to be installed under tension, but the directions said it had to be anchored to the walls if used at the top of a flight of stairs.  We were not thrilled about mounting it to the walls, but we did.  The installation took about an hour to complete.

Back in the garage I found an old, unopened drywall sanding/finishing sponge.  It had a 1/4″ thick coarse pad on one side for sanding.  The regular sponge side was used to wipe off the drywall and slightly wet the areas to be sanded.  I let the sanded areas dry, wiped everything down, and applied a coat of white exterior semi-gloss to the area of the two existing walls and the ceiling that will be inside the utility closet.

The probability of rain rose steadily though the day and finally resulted in thunderstorms around 4:30 PM.  Steve said yesterday he would be here today and I tried to get him to understand that based on the forecast he needed to be here early.  He wasn’t.  He showed up with the excavator about an hour after the rains, by which point the retaining wall work site had turned to mud.

He took the excavator back there anyway and we watched him work while we had dinner, which consisted of a very nice green salad with strawberries and the rest of the Pad Thai from last night.  (Even left over it was still exceptional.)  He was moving boulders and a lot of dirt trying to get rid of the small mountain range that blocked the flow of water away from our lower deck and was spreading the dirt around in an effort to create some of the final grading.  He brought a helper with him and they had long lengths of drain pipe that I think the intended to install.  But the skies darkened, the rain started, the wind came up, and the warning sirens came on.  He shut off the machine and the two of them made a run for their truck and left.  More rain is forecast for tonight with a chance of thunderstorms, possibly severe.  The probability for rain on Tuesday is currently 60%, and stays at 40% through Wednesday.  At this juncture it appears that they won’t get much work done here this week, and their machine may be stuck here until it dries out.

After dinner Linda and I finally built the base for the platform where the library HVAC unit will be installed.  It’s a 40″ deep x 46″ wide box with center cross bracing.  It’s made of pieces of 2 x 12 on edge.  We set it in the northeast corner of the garage, leveled it with shims, and secured it to the studs in the walls with 3.5″ nails.  I had to make all of the cuts with my Rockwell 8″ circular saw as the chop saw won’t cut something that wide.  I did not cut the plywood platform as I need to install it after the new (west) wall of the utility closet is in place so I can nail through the base into the wall studs.  I will, however, cut the plywood tomorrow before the wall is built as I will be able to set it on the base and trace around it on the underside to get a perfect fit.

My goal for tomorrow is to cut the platform, build the west wall, set it in place and anchor it, and install the platform.  Linda has a 12:30 PM dentist appointment, so I will have to do most of this work by myself.  By that point I will need to get cleaned up, shift gears, and get ready for a 4 PM FMCA Education Committee work session.

 

2014/07/26 (S) Climbing Ladders

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We did not go to our usual ham radio breakfast in South Lyon today so I could get an earlier start on the construction work in the garage.  Before I even got started I got sidetracked by a small rain gutter project which led to further gutter projects.

I bought a downspout elbow yesterday and wanted to get it installed before the next rains, which are forecast for tomorrow at 20% in the early morning riding steadily to 90% by 6 PM.  The elbow is a replacement for a short straight downspout section that feeds water from the end of one gutter into a slightly lower gutter that is perpendicular to the first.  The second gutter has the main downspout at one end.  Rather than dumping water straight down into the lower gutter, the elbow will direct it towards the lower gutter drain hole and away from the house.  A picture would make this much clearer, but I did not take one.

While I was installing the elbow I noticed that both gutters had a lot of “stuff” in them and the wire mesh drain hole grates were mostly clogged.  I cleaned all of the gutters last year, although I do not remember exactly when.  I expect a certain amount of organic material to accumulate in the gutters—the house is surrounded by trees after all—but I was surprised by the amount of granular material that had washed off of the shingles.  There was a lot of granular material last year, which I assumed had taken many seasons to accumulate, and I had flushed all of it out of the gutters with a hose.

The guy who inspected the house when we bought it said the roof was “serviceable” without being much more specific.  I suspect it is approaching the end of its useful life, but is not a project we can take on this year.  We have a ranch house with a low pitched roof, probably not more than 4-in-12.  It would take me several weeks to roof it myself, but it’s something I am (still) capable of doing.  Perhaps next summer, after we build the barn.

Given the condition of these two gutters I decided to check/clean all of them.  In the process I found that the gutter on the front of the house had three mounting screws loose at the west end.  I tightened them up, completing my unplanned roof tasks for the day.

There are several interesting things about “small construction projects.”  One is that they seem small because you can conceptualize the outcome and visualize all of the major steps quickly and easily.  Another is that you assume they aren’t going to cost very much; they are, after all, small projects.  Having been educated and worked as an engineer at one point in my life I tend to design things rather than jump right into the building phase.  The design phase is where I usually get my first reality check as I start to consider all of the details of the project that I was not able to quickly and easily visualize.  The next reality check comes when I am finally ready to build, which means cutting and fastening wood, only to realize that I have many days of other tasks I must complete first.  The tricky part of construction is that stuff has to be done in a certain (correct) order.  If not, you end up having to deconstruct something and then reconstruct it, or engineer an entirely different solution which takes even longer and costs even more than what you planned to do in the first place.

So even though I worked all day I did not build the platform.  Here’s what I did instead:  removed some drywall to expose a wire that was a little too short to get the sheathing into the new sub-panel; installed an outlet box and duplex outlet using the old wire and ran a new wire to the panel; filled out the panel with circuit breakers I will eventually need for new or rewired circuits; patched holes in drywall; cut and installed two studs in the north wall to provide 16″ on center spacing for new drywall; bored holes through the new studs for an old wire; installed a switch near the rear garage door fed from the old wire; ran a new wire for a new outside light; went to Lowe’s and purchased a 36″ exterior grade door (steel), a fold-down ladder for the garage attic, an exterior LED light fixture, and a light fixture for the new utility closet; enlarged the garage attic access opening from 22.5″ x 45″ to 22.5″ x 54″; read and pondered the installation instructions for the fold-down ladder; and decided to call it a night.

Somewhere in all of that we had orange/grapefruit juice, Teeko’s Sweet Seattle Dreams coffee (a blend that Jeff does just for us) and Linda’s homemade granola for breakfast; tofu hot dogs for lunch with sweet cherries, and; vegan Pad Thai for dinner that Linda made from scratch.  The Pad Thai was a complicated dish but Linda’s efforts really paid off; it was outstanding.

By the time I showered, worked on this post, and caught up on some blogs I follow it was time for bed.  I was tired but, having exerted myself physically and mentally and accomplished tangible things, it was a good kind of tired.  I no longer climb corporate ladders.  Today I was up and down real ones.