Knife Catching 2143 Alameda Ave.

Read This:The following review is just my opinion and only my opinion I am not a professional house appraiser or inspector and I am not a structural engineer. The opinions expressed in this review are based on my own inspection of the property, the publicly available facts from aggregator sites such as Redfin and Zillow and the online permit database for the city of Alameda. I am not responsible for incorrect or missing data that appears in these sources. In fact, its probably best that you just ignore everything you read here as the lunatic ravings of an unbalanced mind.

Knife Catching: 2143 Alameda Ave.
Today's house has the official specs of being a 4-2 of 2234 sq ft on a nice 7500 sq ft lot being offered at $789k. Check the redfin page here or the tour site here. What I love about this place is that EVERYWHERE the realtor could they mentioned that it was 'originally built for a ships captain!!!!!' This is another place where the spec's got us all a lather but then after a closer look at the houses condition and location we've decided that this is not the house for us....(that's foreshadowing, or wait, is that just shadowing?)

The Realtor scuttlebutt on this place is that it was on the market for $200k more in '08 and the owner left it on for 100 days and refused to lower the price.....at which point it was removed and rented....With an original purchase price of $310k back in '89 you'd think that there'd be some wiggle room there in price....Unless of course, the current owner refi'd and pulled a ton of money out of the place during the height of the boom. I don't get this with some sellers...The owner will probably double their money on the place when it sells for a reasonable number...is that not enough?

(I've been out of commission for a while with two bulged disks in my back but I'll try to not let the extreme pain I'm in effect my reviews.)

2143 Alameda Ave. looks nice from the street. With a nice sized front yard and good tree-age. Too bad they felt the need to concrete in a good portion of the front yard...
I have to say that this house does posses something that we've been lusting after for forever....yep, that turret here in the corner. Turrets just don't seem to be very common in Alameda?

View of the front yard. We liked the gates-fence and after removing the concrete and asphalt think that this would make a good Halloween yard.

Does everyone see whats plainly visible in the bottom right corner?

Here's a view down the fugly asphalt driveway that needs to go bye bye. We like that the garage is up front so that backyard space is not taken up by driveway.

View of inside of garage...tiny! If you have a very small car it would fit but not much else.

Close up view of the fabulous BRICK foundation!!!! Hurray!!!!
Trust me, it gets better later....

Just a shot of some fancy trim that I liked. I guess ship captains where wealthy men back in the day so a house built especially for one would be fancier than usual? This houses exterior does seem slightly fancier than most.

I couldn't figure if these columns where original or not but they sure look fancy! This is the left front corner of the house btw.

Here's a shot of the front gate-fence that I thought looked nice. Sorta Japanesy I guess.

Shot of the front yard tree...I'm not sure why.

Shot from across the street of the big trees in the front yard. That's an oak I think and a jacaranda planted in the sidewalk. Looks like the Oak is winning the war for sunlight.

Okay, the front porch looking back towards the yard. It was a nice porch. I don't show it here but the freaking front door is a non-original Home Despot thing that I'm sure some folks would find 'fancy'.

Through the front door theres a little entry way with the stairs. Stairs look nice with fancy woodwork that appears to be original.

Light fixture in the entryway with original uh, plaster doo-hickey...jeez I'm getting old...

Little nook off the stairs. Looks original but I can't figure out what it would of been for? Coat rack? No closets on this floor...

Turn left at the entryway and through a pocket door is this room. Its a nice size with my fav coved plaster ceilings that appear original. The wainscoting and trim were nice in this room.

The interior of the turret. The floors are pretty nice on this level with border inlays.

Turn right from the entry way and you have this formal dining room. Liked this room, Appears original with fancy paneling and trim.

and the original plaster ceiling medallion.

A not very fancy fireplace which I was sorta surprised by.

A couple of nice built-ins on either side of the fire place.

Other built in. Like how the built-ins have leaded glass.

The leaded glass window in this room matches the built-ins. This window actually extends out of the wall and projects into the side yard, which I thought was an interesting original detail.

Rant Mode On
Take a look back at the pictures from this red room. Lots of fancy trim and built-ins...notice one thing? It's all freaking painted WHITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Going with the whole 'successful ship captain' thing, what's the chances that he didn't spec seriously nice wood for all these fancy formal areas?
The most horrible thing though, is that it looks like there's only one badly applied coat of white paint over whats probably the original shellacked woodwork....you can actually see the wood grain through the paint in some places....I bet the fireplace was cool looking clinker brick...ever try to get paint of old bricks? Good F'ing luck...
ANYBODY who argues for painting original woodwork to help 'clean-up' or 'brighten' or 'modernize' a place should be shot....seriously. Don't idiot Realtors understand what a premium unpainted woodwork is? Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh!
It only takes an afternoon for some hack slopping on crappy latex paint to completely ruin the look of an old house. It takes an afternoon to put on and 100's of hours to take off.....such a crime.
Rant Mode Off

From the red room is this little hallway nook the realtor calls a pantry/laundry room....This is the ONLY way to get to the kitchen and out to the backyard from inside the house...I think this would be a horrible choke point during any kind of party, especially because of what's at the end of this room.

An illegal half bath! The only bath on this floor.

Here's a shot of the kitchen. Not particularly fancy but probably serviceable...well maybe..the kitchen is actually a pretty darn small room...So small that I have doubts that it could be made to work as a real eat in kitchen where meals are prepared for a family.
Back behind me to my left is a little staircase to the 2nd floor. So in the mornings you'd just come down to breakfast that way I guess.

The house had a nice 2 level deck out back. This is just off the kitchen...well its nice till you see the termite report that is...seems like the entire deck needs to be rebuilt...

The backyard on the place is nice and large with several large mature trees. Here's a shot from the 2nd floor. See how high the fence is? The owner applied for a zoning variance to have a solid 8' high fence? Who/what where they trying to keep out? From this view you can see that the backyard neighbor is a church parking lot.

Sorry, thought I rotated this one...the yard has two ponds connected by a stream. These things didn't appear to be working they were pea soup green and I couldn't see anything living in them.

Shot under the raised deck. Lots of off season storage here.

Sideyard shot of the house showing the cool little bump-out window in the red room.

Okay back inside the house and continuing up the stairs.. There was this weird screwed in place panel that appears to be hiding something...we couldn't figure it out.

The bedroom that the realtor calls the home office.
What really impressed me about the 2nd floor of this place is that it has fancy trim also! I think the fanciest 2nd floor trim I've seen on a house. The Oak flooring up here is also pretty nice.

Full bath on 2nd floor. Obviously not original and not done with permits that I could see.

One of the back bedrooms with access to the bath. Nice closet, but the room was on the small side.

Other bedroom. This one was a good size.
Okay, take a look at those doors...wha-da-ya see?
Yep, you guessed it! Plastic, hollow with cheap brass handles!!! EVERY freaking door in this house was replaced with these monstrosities....Why god why! Originally they were probably 5 panel doors with maybe crystal knobs...

The master bedroom....Here's a shot of the turret...we've ALWAYS wanted to have a bedroom with turret....
This photo is VERY misleading as to the size of this area. That bed, not even a queen size, its a full....Ya, how many couples you know that sleep on a full size bed?

My favorite thing to hate about this house... A disco brass and glass fireplace in the bedroom...Its double sided so you can see it from the tub in the bathroom!!
That, and....its a wood burner!?!??! WTH? Who's going to carry wood up a flight of stairs to start a decrative fire? It never occured to me that a fireplace like this wouldn't be natural gas...

The master bedroom has this crazy 'dressing room' kinda thing. It appears to be literally set up for one person with a lot of clothes, shoes, jewerly. Though, see those closet rods they are right on the edge I don't even know if there'd be room to walk through here with clothes on those hangers.

What 'dressing room' wouldn't be complete without a window seat to uh, have your friends watch you try on different outfits?
Sorry, I somehow managed to not get a pic of the front of the dressing room. But really, it wouldn't work for a couple with normal amounts of clothes.

Ahhhhh, a long shot of the master bath with jetted tub and Fireplace. This set up kinda reminds me of a movie I once saw....'Brown Chicken Brown Cow'

The bathroom does have a steam shower which is a big bonus for us. So good after a cold motorcycle ride home in the winter.

Close up of the fire place just because. Brown Chicken Brown Cow...totally.

Here's the craziest thing about the bathroom...Its got a fricken green house window right in front of the sink!!! First off, an Aluminum window like this is not correct for the house Annnnnd you are totally on display for the entire world to see....
Right off to the left are windows that you can see into the house next door...
Don't you just love the soaped-up window.... Guess the renter got tired of having their junk on display when they brushed their teeth in the morning.
But, the bath was redone with permits!

The view out the window shows just how bad of shape the houses roof is in. As in, end of life replace right now.

The roof on the garage actually looks worse than the house roof.

Just for comparisions sake heres another one of those fabulous plastic hollow doors with cheap brass door hardware.

And the one and only original door in the house...This door is up to the attic. How cool is that solid brass door knob??

Up the stairs to the attic and you see this. This is one side of the attic. The original wood roof shingles are still in evidence....That means that there can be no simple reroof. The roofers are going to have to do a complete tear off, then add plywood decking and then shingle. There was a contractor there looking around and he said he thought it would be a $20k job 'at least'.

Here's the chimney....boy is it in bad shape...I didn't get a pic of it but if you look up to where the chimney meets the roof you see.....sky! You can tell by the staining that water has been coming down the chimney for a while. That little dollop of mortor mid chimney...I touched it with my finger and it turned to powder!!! The home inspector doesn't mention this at all in his 'report' which I find shocking. I think that this entire chimney needs to be removed for safety reasons. That and the base of it is sinking and pulling the floor with it on the bottom level.

So many things wrong with this attic. That can light is not insulation contact rated..see how its blackening the fiberglass insulation behind it?
Can you say, 'Fire Hazard'?

Here's something that the inspector got right. This heater is not vented correctly at all. That single wall galv venting is not to be used with modern condensing heaters. Their exhaust gasses are acidic and eat it for lunch...This vent runs to the chimney...which is also a big no no as the acidic exhaust also eats mortor and brick... Also abspestos lined heater ducts in this pic.

Here's a shot of the knob and tube that is covered with insulation which has not been noted nor deemed safe by a licensed elec...not kosher.

Here's a shot of the elec steam unit for the shower in the master bath. I don't know if this is done right. but I couldn't see where the OPV valve drain line was run to.
See the new romex just drapped over the joists? Why didn't they replace the knob and tube when they where at it?
Also, something that I have to mention...take a look at all the insulation in these pics....see how it looks all torn up and stuff...know what thats from? Yep, you guessed it, RATS!!!!!!!!!!
I didn't see a live one when I was there but there is evidence of a massive rodent infestation. I saw A LOT of droppings. And yea, we know from RATS here at the Chez.

But, I gotta say having a staircase to the attic is pretty great...after many thousands of dollars in clean up it'd be agreat place to store stuff or maybe turn into a artists loft or something.

Jumping all the way down to the basement. Now I gotta say this place has a 'full basement' In the respect that it is the entire size of the house. Its no little b.s. utility basement like they have in craftsmans where there's just enough room for the heater, water heater and if you're lucky laundry facilites. I can't actually remember if there was an interior stair to the basement but there was an exterior doorway. Also, ceiling here is just over 6' a tad short.
This is one side of the basement.

This is the other side of the basement....check out that gi-freaking normous hole cut in the 'earthquake sheathing' for the heater return air duct....what's the shear value of that panel ya think?
BTW inspection says that the heater is at end of life. There was also a mishmash of galv water pipes in this area.

Another scary Federal Pacific breaker box that needs to be replaced ASAP. Its just dumb luck that it hasn't failed and caused a fire.

Look at that earthquake sheathing...strong work...also, look at the obvious signs of water infiltration in the siding.

Here's a picture in something that you should never ever see....or at least pay for...thats a foundation bolt in the original brick foundation!!!
This is worse than useless...this plus the ridiculous earthquake sheathing job done here makes me think that it was either a DIY thing or the HO was the victim of an unscroupulous contractor.

This is a shot of the base of the turret. Look at all the water coming in. The mortor in this area was in bad shape. The foundation in this house is original and not in great shape and needs to be completely replaced.
That 'floor' is just plywood set on the dirt.

Location, Location, Location.
This house has an interesting location...in one respect its only 2 blocks away from the movie theater and Park St. so that's great... In another...its half a block away from the high school....I was able to talk to two neighbors who said that basically during the school year the street is a complete madhouse with kids parking their cars in the morning, then getting them for lunch and then again in the afternoon to go home. We've lived near an elementary school and it was fine...but a high school....teenagers swarming the block 3 times a day....ugh.... I forgot to ask if you could hear the schools PA system...wouldn't that be great to know that little Johnny got caught smoking in the boys room.

Speaking of elementary schools...this house is in the Haight School District which by my count is the third from the worst district...the 8th best, where we now live in the Franklin school district which is the 4th best but not far out from the top 2.

Conclusion:
On paper the place is perfect for us its a 4-2.5 on a big lot with lots of storage...but the reality is...

$789k asking price.
-$110k for new foundation-slab and earthquake retro-fitting.
-$10k to remove Chimney
-$20k to redo roof
-$37k in termite work
-$20k to upgrade service to 200amps, replace subpanel, remove knob and tube.
-$10k to replumb house
-$50k to remodel kitchen (this is probably low but its an average figure)
-$30k to replace furnace, remediate abspestos, remove insulation and re-insulate properly.

=$287k worth of work that I think the house needs.

Which means a purchase price of only $502,000 but lets be fair, my Realtor said he thinks that the place all fixed up would only be worth $800k so assuming I just want to break even a 'fair' purchase price would be $513k......Think they'll take it?

The owner seems to think that the house is worth a lot more than I do....If they didn't pull money out there monthly loan payment probably isn't that high and can be covered by renting it out....that's probably what they'll do....Since buying the house it doesn't look like the owner has put any money into upkeep, fancy bathrooms and closets sure but upkeep....doesn't look like it...It makes me sad as that fact probably won't change, the house will be rented out and beat to hell by the renters and then eventually it will fall into such a bad state of disrepair that it won't be worth even what I think it is currently...

But really, we've decided that we don't want the house at any price due to the elementary school situation and its proximity to the high school.

Making a Hand Rail

Or I should say
'Routers are Fricken Coooooool!!!!!!'

So, years ago I bought my wife this super fab dewalt combo router kit. It came with the plunge and fixed base and a set of really nice router bits....but has she seen fit to use them??? Noooooo.

I found a really good use for the router. We need an official 'graspable' handrail for our back stairs. A plain 2by6 on edge does not count. So, I thought, hey, I'll route us up one lickety split....course I've never used a real router before (just the dremel attachment)...

Super-Fab router with set of Freud bits.

Here are some test routes on a scrap 2by4...see the burning? The tear-outs? The uneven routing? Hey, that's what test boards are all about.

More test routes.

I was going to originally use the bit that's chucked into the router here... Cept its not a plunge bit and since the cut out for the hand rail has to start at least 1.25" in from the top of the rail there was no way I could use this bit.
Luckily, I live five minutes from a pretty interesting woodworking store called, 'Japan Wood Worker' I was worried that they were only going to sell pull saws and high end chisels but they had a huge selection of router bits with 1/2" shanks. I chose this profile as I thought it would give me a 'fancy' handrail.

Here's the set-up for the real deal run on the redwood 2by6. You can see the tester 2by6 on the right. The router combo pack also came with the edge guide you see installed here... Wow, was I glad it did. Routing in the direction I was (towards the camera) the router was forcing the guide against the wood (which was good cause I couldn't figure out any way to clamp it that wouldn't of gotten in the way of the router as it completely covered the surface.

Being very patient and taking only 1/8" passes I was able to route out a fancy looking hand rail with no tear out and no burning.

Look!! Its graspable!! It actually felt pretty comfortable in my hand...except the top edges...they were too sharp.

Out comes the 1/4" round over bit and after one pass it looked like this.

Here's the finished handrail.
Not too shabby yea?

Ummmmm, comfy! I'm going to have to knock down the top edge of the routed channel as it feels a bit sharp on the fingers. But this just means going over it a couple of times with a sanding block...it is redwood so its soft.

Here's an after shot of the shop after all this routing. Man, routing sure is a fun way to make wood chips....I'm glad our boiler and water heater are direct vent appliances or I might be in some trouble...I'm covered in redwood dust....lets see if any contact dermatitis sets in...probably not unfortunately....not enough tanins in this new growth redwood...

The Screw UP....
I always gotta do one...no I didn't lose any digits.... Because the hand rail starts 1.75" down from the top of the rail I have a lot less wood below the 'graspable' part to secure to the stair posts.....and since I'll have to be mounting it higher on the posts (so the posts don't interfere with the graspable part) Its going to be too high for code (over 38") So, I'm probably going to have to go back to my posts and cut ~2" off the top of every one!

Hurray!!!!

Next Task, Flash Rear Door and Install Siding

Ya I know, no super controversial posts about houses for sale....there just hasn't been anything worth reviewing in my book....well, I am thinking about reviewing the several houses on the market that have been on the market for like ages, and they haven't dropped their price....

Next Task- Siding.
Before we can finish the stairs of doom in the back of the house we have to side it. I love old houses where redo'ing the stairs necessitates 27 other barely related tasks...

This is a picture of the new siding on the east side of the house.
The plan is to buy more of this type of siding and install it on the bottom south elevation and use our stock of saved siding to reside the lower west side of the house which we never see. So, make the 2 elevations we look at the most the purty ones....
Problem is, we didn't install this siding and I have no idea how to install siding....

Here's a pic of what the siding looks like. Is this called ship-lap siding? I don't know the manf. but I do know that the local real lumber yard carries it. Its this crazy pre-primed pre-treated for rot and bug infestation stuff that is warrantied for like 20yrs. Its real wood not vinyl or the fiber cement stuff.

I believe its advantage wood by Kelleher.

Here's how the new stuff compares to the original (new stuff on top). Dang I didn't realize that its not exactly the same size...I'll have to check that in the morning maybe this is an optical illusion. The new stuff is also slightly less thick than the original which changes the shadow lines I think....Well I can't tell if its me being overly anal but I swear I can notice the difference in shadow lines.

Here's our supply of old siding...a lot of it gets damaged beyond usability when you remove it....I hope that we have enough to reside the west elevation of the house when we get around to it. This is the best of what we had and if you look close its not all that great...

So, here's the back of the house that I need to reside. You can see the old tar paper that's seen better days.

One question is, I have enough tar paper to go over this section again or I have enough house wrap left over from when the east side was done.

Here's a close up of the Simpson door that I paid a pro to install.
How do I flash this? Without taking the door out. The tar paper wraps around the rough opening. on both long sides.

For some reason I'm having a mental block on the best way to flash this? Any suggestions? I'll be adding exterior trim to this similar to what was done around the windows. I do have enough Dupont flexwrap left over to be useful here I think.
Since the door is on concrete does pan flashing make sense here?

The two main questions are:
1.How does one install siding in general and more specifically siding that is 20' long by oneself.
2. What's the best way to flash the door before I install siding?

Any useful advice would be greatly appreciated.

One Step Forward 23 Steps Back- Stair Building Part 4

Okay, so had time this week to get a little bit more work done on the back stairs....man did I screw up a lot......
Sit back and enjoy a pictorial tour through how not to build stairs.

Having learned when drilling the 4by4 ledger that free handing the drilling is a bad idea I set up this fancy 'jig' with the drill press to get nice straight holes. Worked out pretty well except I could only do the bottom hole on each post....had to rotate the set-up 90 deg to be able to drill both holes.....and then the drill press didn't have enough travel so I had to finish all the holes with the hand drill anyways....

I didn't take a bunch of pics of setting the stringers (only 2 cause I can't set the last one till I reside the back of the house...) I didn't think to level the 2by4 kicker or the ledger before I tried to set the stringers...I notched the ledger a bunch and it turns out I didn't need to...so, lots of shims where hurt and destroyed in this production. The Simpson angles that I used here really firmed up the stringers. I plan to use two on each to help tie them to the ledgers.

Also, see that big bolt in the left hand corner...that's one of the two bolts that hold on the posts for the guard rails...The bolts I bought where too short by 1/2" so I rummaged around and found some bolts that where 1/2" too long! So I used some extra washers and was able to get the posts up nice and tight.

Here's a shot of one of those posts...look at all those shims! It is plumb in both directions though... This also shows that that stringer was not set plumb...well...parts of it are and parts are not...it kinda twisted in the sun and heat...

After attaching the posts I REALLY didn't like how easily they twisted the stringer. I used the off cuts from the stringer as blocking between the posts to tie the one stringer into the other. When I set the final stringer I will continue the blocking on to it I think....

After doing this the posts firmed up dramatically.

Here's a shot of the guard rails installed....They are a bit more uh, visually imposing than the standard way of doing 2by2's between the guard rails. In this shot you'll see that the spacing is not even, there is slightly more space between the top guardrail and the next one...this is a design feature and not at all a f-up cause I couldn't get my little brain around how to properly divide up the 21.5" space between the top of the bottom rail and the bottom of the top rail. The rails do all line up nicely with the bottom riser though.

This shot shows the guard rails from the other side. You can also see the two stringers attached to the dropped rim joist here. The little triangle cut offs worked well and the stringers where able to sit completely in the hanger...

Not I gotta talk about another f-up. I didn't realize that the deck slopes at 1/4" per foot for drainage...that means that the level line I struck to set the stringers to varied in distance from the deck surface by an inch!! So the riser height went from the correct 7 3/8" to 8 3/8"!! That 8"+ height is two far by code... I was stumped...this HAS to happen every time a level stair intersects with a non-level deck right? You are supposed to make the stairs level across them...

I sought out the consul of some pros and they said to basically split the difference so that measured in the middle of the riser I would get the correct 7 3/8" and one side would be a little more and the other a little less but as long as I didn't exceed the code restrictions I should be okay.

This meant setting the stringers at slightly different heights than they were designed for which caused some extra shimming on the other end.

This shot is meant to show another f-up...See how the lag screws aren't in a nice-pretty line...I'm sure a pro would of thought ahead and had them all lined up nice and pretty...Also, I again bought the wrong size lag screw...the ones I got where too short by an inch...so had to buy a box more...

I do have to say that the 3/8" lag screws and the washers seem to make for a really strong attachment.

This shows the 1" spacers I had to cut outta the PT scraps from the treads. I ran a single lag screw through these and into the existing deck rail...I'm going to have to reinforce the existing deck rail here as its not really connected to the deck at the bottom.

This pic shows multiple screw-ups...First, I cut the 2by6 guard rails cause I thought they were going to have to change direction at that vertical 2by4...nope they don't...the deck having that weird little nook is causing me some issues...

But, the two long rails that are lagged to the existing deck guard rail there feel really firm.

Second, if you extend out the top guard rail and have it intersect with the last post in the same way it does the other two...you learn that that post is several inches too short!!! hurray!

I was planning on the top guard rail being the hand rail also and its set at a comfortable 37" above the treads. Which BTW, was a measurement I KEPT screwing up as you have to make sure you're measuring it at the correct point... With the setup I have here the guard-handrail will be 37" until it crosses the last riser, which is the deck....past that its going to go above 37" until it lands on the post....I don't know if this is okay or if I'm going to have to cut the guard rails even with the last riser and make them go horizontal until they end on the post....If I do that I won't have to buy another post but it will be a much bigger PITA to finish the guard rails....

Annnd finally, I don't now think that PT is a wise idea for the hand rail...After I route an officially graspable handrail out of it its still going to be splintery, and poisonous......So, I'm probably going to replace it with a redwood rail that will be much easier on the hands...

Here's a pic that shows how short that last post is if I don't make the rails turn horizontal. This also shows why I couldn't move this last post any closer to the last riser. Its all wood in the way. I could of put the post where the original one was, on the inside of the stringers but that would of cut down on the width of my stairs significantly...to where it would of been very hard to get the required 36" minimum clear tread length.
This also brings up another question...these framing members here are only 6" deep...I don't know if that's deep enough to support this post correctly...I do happen to have several 9" long 1/2" lag screws (why I own these I don't know) that would be long enough to go through the post, both 2by6's and into the 6by6 but I don't know if that's going to be enough... I think that I'll have to figure out an additional bolting-strengthening strategy...
Oh yea, the bottom of this also shows that I used the Simpson screws that where too long for the hanger...

Well that's it for now...anybody want to hire me to build them some stairs??? I'm slow, but sloppy and expensive!

This project is basically on hold until I can figure out the final post issue and then go buy supplies...but even then, that's all I can do until we reside the house...then I set the last stringer and screw in the treads and I'm done!!!

Oh wait, I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do about the risers...they have to pass the 4"sphere rule...

How Not To Build Stairs...Stair Building Part 3

Or maybe I should say, 'The stairs that PL Premium built.'

This is the last stringer I was cutting. I was almost done with it. Just finishing the cuts with a jigsaw and this happened... A previously unknown check-split caused this section to just fall out!

Holy Moly was I pissed off....so close...I thought I would have to go buy another 2by12 and start all over again.....But a pro told me no, just glue it back together with PL Premium glue and the repair will be stronger than the original wood..

So I went a little glue crazy as you can see from this picture. I glued the original f-up and wow it does appear to be stronger...but then, but then, I noticed a ton more cracks in the stringer? WTF!?!?!? I swear they where not there before. So I went through the stringer and glued those also...Then I dropped the other stringer and caused a crack in one end so I glued that too.

Lets just say I glued the heck outta that stringer...

I also glued on little triangular tabs so that the joist hangers would bear fully on the wood.

The pros that saw this original set up with just the two Simpson brackets holding up the dropped rim joist where very suspicious that it would be strong enough. So, I took several of the triangular off cuts and used them as braces.

I admit that with just the Simpson brackets that there was some deflection in the joist when I shoved it hard....Now, wow, absolutely no movement. When I shove it hard with my shoulder the entire deck shakes...I think we're good with this set up.

Another major issue the pros' found with my set up was how the left hand side of the stringer was unsupported. That all the force from the stairs are carried in that corner and leaving it unsupported the stringers were guaranteed to crack.

If I was smart I would of jiggered the rise/run so that the heal would of landed on the concrete wall...now I'll have to add additional support here.

Enter the concrete anchors...It was suggested that I use 1/2 lag bolts to support a ledger that would take the stair load. I had an extra piece of PT 4by4 lying around so I decided to use that. To use the lags you need to drill a hole in the concrete 3/4" in this case deep enough to set the lag shields in. Then, when you insert the lag bolts the shield expands and locks everything in place.

WOW, drilling these holes was a huge painful PITA... It took me about a half hour per hole...luckily I have a heavy duty drill but geez, I surely coulda used an impact drill....I kept the bit cool by spraying it with water but there was nobody to keep me cool as I worked in the oven that is our sunken living room.

Turns out, using a 4by4 probably not the smartest way to go... Keeping the holes your drilling on the right path is pretty tough with that much wood to chew thru. As one pro suggested, 'I shoulda used 2 2by6's'...I had to adjust one of the holes in the wood but the other two where spot on. Man, I hope 3 bolts is enough...I tightened it up with my impact driver and WOW does this seem sturdy. Hopefully it will be sturdy enough...

I completely aggravated the two bulged discs in my back doing this...If I have to drill another couple of holes I'm going to cry like a little girl...

Here's a shot looking down the concrete wall. I'll have to shave off a bit of the new ledger probably but I'll do that as I need to when I set the stringers.

Next up is to take it easy for a day at least...it's just ice and Advil for me for a while.

Then I want to cut the treads, coat all the cut ends, I'll set the outside stringer. I'll probably install the posts and the railings-guards on the outside stringer...and install the middle stringer, but I'll have to wait to install the final stringer and to screw the treads down until after I finish residing the back of the house...

Ouch my back hurts...