Midterm elections are coming up soon. Campaign slogans saturate the Internet, social media is anything but, shouts of “You suck!” and “No, you suck more!” pass as candidate and issue information. By the time 7:00AM rolls around I’ve already eaten and washed the breakfast dishes and escaped to the outdoors, away from the sounds of civilization. I think Randy Newman captured public sentiment…
“Broken windows and empty hallways,
a pale lit moon in a sky streaked with grey.
Human kindness is overflowing,
and I think it’s gonna rain today.”
Shaking off what can’t be controlled
Knowing myself well; hard working, but punctuated with periods of situational laziness, I need to create incentives to finish projects. I love my truck. We are simpatico. Subsequently, if I have a home, so does my truck. In this case, it is a comfy garage to keep Chuck out of the extreme weather Maine sometimes experiences. When I have projects involving a good deal of material, I put the truck on the driveway and fill the garage bay with project supplies. Until I finish the project, the truck must remain outdoors and I cannot change the tractor over for snow removal. The more anxious I get, the faster I work.
I thought this would be easy
How bad could could the damage be? Some pine trim, a little rain, splashing to follow, then repeat for twenty-five years. I’ve painted and filled, painted and filled but those board ends began to look like broom ends, so I pulled the four sections of vertical trim from both overhead doors to see what there was to see.
In each case, the interior king studs were intact, but the trimmers were rotted 8″ up from the bottom along with the brick mould, jamb and weather stop trim. The sheetrock behind the studs was water damaged, the ends of the starter boards were rotted, as were the OSB sheathing sections immediately behind the starter boards and over the door framing. All victims of spring melting of winter ice and snow and Maine’s summer rain and humidity.
The right way to correct the problem would be to replace all of the damaged pieces, beginning with the trimmers. Unfortunately, the original construction has the garage door framing, springs and track system anchored to an interior mount board that is anchored to the backside of the king studs and trimmers. Head scratch, head scratch.
An oscillator saw was used to amputate the damaged section of trim board and a section of ground rated pressure treated 2″x4″ stud was spliced in with an interference fit, coated top and backside with Loctite PL Max Premium Construction Adhesive and secured to the king stud with multiple framing screws.
All of the materials were cut out and replaced with new. Everything was heavily waterproofed, sealed, taped and sprayed. The the brick mound, jamb and weather stop were replaced with cellular PVC, end sealed with acetone. The clapboard was repainted the original yellow. Caulking took awhile, but it came out OK.
The black specks on the white trim are driveway grit splatter from last night’s heavy rain, but there is still a little finishing work to be done. I began with screws designed to anchor PVC and color match. Too labor intensive and not that great as a finishing touch. So I switched to a pneumatic nailer with stainless nails.
Next?
I have to admit, the last ramp I made was not made like the ramp for the shop. It was quite a thrill backing the garden tractor down the ramp this past spring. So much so that I do not believe another ingress – egress would be attempted. The new ramp is just about completed, a large pile of dimensional lumber waiting to be cut and assembled. This one will be 6 feet wide, three joists on a ledger with hangers. Soon. I have to get Chuck back inside inside.
Hope you’re all doing well and hope you hand a terrific summer on the way to a fun winter!
