Take me to the water

Water, water, everywhere, and narry a drop to paddle.

After moving in to the new house, and spending a fortune on getting potable water and a few other repairs, my attention turned to painting. A house really starts to feel like a home as you try to cover up every little imperfection in the walls in preparation for several new coats of paint.

But as the weather warms the painting is getting old and the water begs for me to play. The problem is 32 cinder block steps from my driveway to the water on a 60 degree slope. No handrail. Only 3 blocks wide (2 blocks in some spots). You take your life in your own hands to carry more than your own weight to the bottom of these steps, and even the most hardy often stop to rest part way back up the hill. Obviously, something has to be done.

Joel is a craftsman and was highly recommended by others to solve my problem. After looking at my dilemma Joel started working his magic. In the area beside the steps Joel suggested a terraced switchback made from 6"x6" lumber to make a comfortable 5 1/2" rise for each step - handrails on the downhill sides - with a nice landing at the bottom above normal flood. From this landing I would have a place to attach a gangplank for the dock I plan to build myself.

Over the next few weeks I'll post pictures and a few comments as I see things progress at the end of each work day. It appears after 2 days to be going slow, but Joel and his partner Wade are putting down each timber with precision and anchoring it well into the earth below. It will be interesting to watch this take shape.

End of Day 1

End of Day 2

Woody

Poisoned Waters

PBS documentary starting tonight on the Puget Sound and the Chesapeake Bay. Watch it on TV or online:

Woody

The Deck

Progress is going well. It is starting to look like a deck.

The dock floats and hardware have been ordered and received. After I give the lumber order a good going over, I'll order the wood for the frame.

Day 3

Day 4

Day 6

Day 8

Woody

Finished Deck

The deck has been finished for quite some time, and I'm a good bit behind on the updates. The dock is also finished, but that will be the subject of a different post.

Here are the Deck pictures. Dock photos and blog post to follow.

Woody

The Dock

The dock was going to be a challenge. There was a fairly steep grade to the water, and my original plan was to build a hinged ramp down to the dock. But after framing out the ramp and going down to the water to mentally test fit it, I realized the angle would be MUCH to steep to carry a kayak up/down the ramp.

It took me a day or two to recover from this setback. I wasn't sure how to get around this problem. For the rest of my dock design to work I needed the dock to be about 12' out from the bottom of the deck, and I had anywhere from a 4'-6' drop to accommodate (depending on the water level).

I finally settled on a step/ramp hybrid. I would build steps down to the water, and attach the ramp to one of the steps that would give a fairly level walk over to the dock.

Time to get building.

I started out building the frame in my front yard. I had no way to get the dock to the water, so my neighbor had graciously offered to let me build my dock on top of his, and then just slide it into the water.

I had a tough challenge ahead. In order to minimize the amount of time needed on my neighbor's dock, I needed to pre-build the dock in my yard, then disassemble and reassemble on his dock. And to make the dock float as low as possible to the water (this is a kayak dock) I needed to attach the floats to the underside of the decking instead of the bottom of the frame. This would require flipping the dock over to attach the floats and then flipping it back over to slide into the water - all while sitting on my neighbor's dock. It wasn't a chore I felt safe about doing. I also pre-sealed all the wood during the initial construction so I wouldn't contaminate the water from over spray and could seal the underside of all the boards.

At work, Chris suggested I assemble the frame up off the ground and bolt the floats on from the bottom. It was worth a try and I built a jig to hold a float up against the deck boards they would attach to so I could mark, pre-drill, and bolt them on.

Ryan came over the following Saturday to help me dis-assemble the dock and carry it down to my neighbor's. Ryan suggested we build it on his lawn and slide it off his sea wall rather than carry the dock down a narrow path to his dock.

We disassembled the dock into as few pieces as possible, taking the floats in 2 sections (leaving them bolted to the underside of the deck boards), each side of the frame, and the middle frame and end boards. The middle frame and end boards were too heavy for me to carry, so we set one end on the back of Ryan's pickup, and I backed the truck down while Ryan carried the other end. Did I mention he was part ox?

In short order the dock was reassembled and another neighbor came down to see if this thing was actually going to float.

We put a few long boards under the dock and pulled the concrete blocks out from each corner so the floats set directly on the long boards. These would act as runners, and hung over the sea wall a foot or so. The idea being to provide something to the dock to slide against and not snag on the seawall as the edge of the dock went over. We pushed the dock out on the boards a little bit until we could lift the runners. The dock took off and splashed into the water a few feet below the wall. We had a long rope attached to it and I started to pull it over to my neighbor's dock to tie it off while Ryan loaded the 2 runners onto the dock.

The current was running pretty swift and the idea was to tie up to the neighbor's dock until it calmed, then use another neighbor's boat to haul it in to place. Ryan suggested we walk along the shore and pull the dock down, but the terrain is too steep. Someone suggested we paddle it, so a neighbor brought us a couple of canoe paddles and off we went.

It was a little tough going against the current, but in no time we had tied off the dock to the bottom of the deck and were heading off to get lunch. Not bad for 2 1/2 hours of work.

Little did I realize that we would spend the rest of the day getting the stringers in place for the stairs. They were heavy and difficult to maneuver. At the top they were attached to the base of the deck structure with a hinge with a big pin running through the hinge to hold it together. We could get the pin though 3 of the 4 hinge tabs, but even a sledge could not persuade the pin in to place. But before 5:00 we had the stringer's pinned and the pipes in place to hold the dock off shore.

I should explain the pipes that lead out to the dock. Last year there was a flood on the lake that brought the water up 10'. I could anchor the dock to the bottom of the lake with pipe, but they would need to stick up above the water by 10+' to avoid getting washed away in another flood. Using the pipe tied back and hinged at the cock and at the shore, the water could raise at least the length of the pipe (12') before it became a problem. Nothing would need to tower above the dock and hamper moving the kayaks around.

Over the next few days I put in the step treads and decked the dock.

I added the ramp, and some nylon fold down cleats to use as handholds while getting in/out of the kayaks.

I attached a few J-Racks to the dock to hold the kayaks and attached the cable cross bracing between the pipes to prevent lateral movement of the dock. After attaching the J-Racks and sitting back on the dock - Drill in one hand and my sweat stained hat in the other - it suddenly dawned on me - I have a dock....

Woody