New Deck #2: Day three of the deck build

Well yesterday was a rain-out day, so today was a double-header. Well not really true. But the deck boards were going down well.

You can see my 20 ft pipe clamp that I’m using to compress all of the deck boards and take out the woofs, and the bows that always seem to show up after your get the perfect boards home. So much for hand picking.

Everything was going well until I got close to the edge.

Of course I was planning to stop here until I did the electric for the lights. BUT, I put a tape measure on the space and I found out that the space was different than I had calculated.

I measured the board and they are 5 1/2”. I mean they are always 5 1/2” Because I bought a 2 X 6. BUT, after you get 24 boards screwed down and you find that the measurements are not panning out, you check one more time. “Let’s see measure twice and Screw once” These puppies are 5 5/8”, they probably are going to shrink to the 5 1/2” size. Meanwhile my deck surface is 3” wider than I estimated for the number of boards that are installed. So what is going to happen is I’ll have a half board on each side.

Not a big problem, but not as designed.

I also went to the big box store to purchase a 20 Amp ground fault circuit breaker. $54.00 lighter in my pocket I brought it home.

I took the circuit panel apart, Took my “Gold Plated” GFI circuit breaker, put it in and it popped. Wait a minute, that’s not suppose to happen. I put the old circuit breaker back in and it worked fine.

(Scratching head, Ponder, Ponder) I know, take the wires apart and see where the trouble is.

Problem, The box where the wires came out of the ground are under 3 deck boards, OK the drill has a reverse. Take up the boards. Lay on my belly on my “New Deck” open the box, untwist all of the wires.

Turn on the circuit breaker, OK the buried wire to the box is OK. The new wire I put in is under the deck is OK. The problem is the wire that is buried to the duck pond.

Pause!!! Wife just stopped by with chocolate covered apples slices and strawberries. You will have to wait while I eat. She must be liking her new deck. She’s not worried about the problems.

They were good. Excellent.

I regress. I also mentioned the duck pond.

4 babies that we got at Easter time. We usually raise them to let the foxes, raccoons and hawks take them. That’s not the plan, but that’s what seems to happen. The two that we had last summer gave us some great eggs, until something had a hankering for duck. We usually let them run around the yard when they get big. We do put them back in the cage at night. Daisy Duck, a jet black one last year thought I was her mate, when I walked close to her she’d squat down on the ground. I’d pick her up and when I put her down she’d look at me and I guess she was thinking, “Is this what sex is suppose to be like!”

Back to the deck.

I took all of the wires apart at the duck pond. The ones buried to the shed caused a problem. Wait the ones to the yard light caused a problem. Today is not my day to fix all electric problems. So untwist all of the wires so I can close up the box under the deck and I’ll worry about the ones at the tree and shed later. These lights all worked great until I put in a ground fault Circuit breaker. So there has got to be some bleed through some where.

Circuit breaker stays on, Put back down the deck boards that were removed. Pack up all the tools. Put the batteries on the charger.

Tomorrow is toy making day. Nothing to be done on the deck.

-- Karson retired in DE e-mail karson_morrison@bigfoot.com