i'm back in a mogul camp and i got a little job to do i gotta
fix those stairs they've just gotten too rotten but i've also noticed they don't line up with a
deck very well and that's because the deck this corner is sagged down
so that's the first thing i gotta fix to make the geometry a little simpler
so it's a wee bit higher than i needed to so i think i need this dumping crew
now okay you gotta stomp right there right there and you jump up and down
not heavy enough right here
given that this board is uh one of the few attachment points and how rotten it is
i think i have to replace that too
so unfortunately i have a bit of a step because this is thicker but i'll solve
that by raising this board up a little bit so i don't get a tripping hazard right here
perfectly level
considering how rotten the end of this beam was it's actually still quite usable
and i only cut this much off of it i just screwed this part onto this part that i just made
and that will be the attachment point for the steps i'm not screwing anything together
permanently yet because i'm still figuring this out now i'm trying to figure out how i'm going
to build these stairs i like the design of the old one which essentially has a 2x4
a real 2x4 though and these triangles on there for the stringers because there's not that much space
above this foundation block here but to do it that way requires that i have this extra level step at
the very top which is a step i shouldn't need so if instead i put the string or two by fours under
like this then that can be the edge of my first step and i save a bit of wood that way and i get
a lower slope i totally hadn't planned it that way but the triangles i need happen to be exactly
the width of a two by eight so that works out really nicely
that doesn't look too bad it doesn't come all the way down to the ground
but with all this uneven crap i want a platform there anyways
this is the right spot for the stringer now i need to screw a support on the bottom for it to rest on
oh
it's starting to look like steps but i made one mistake i forgot to account for the thickness of
this so the top step is a bit smaller now with that support moved back so the steps are lower
i'm hitting this old foundation here so i gotta chip away a bit more of that
that's looking pretty good now next i need to make a small platform down here
but before i do that it's evident that this deck has shifted this way a little bit and i realized
that's not because the deck was placed incorrectly when i had some people replace the original cement
posts which had also shifted too much with this stuff it's because all the posts are leaning this
way a little bit because there's no side to side bracing also these uh middle two posts right there
those don't even touch the deck so i think we'll take those out and the nephews have been playing
with a slack line so i think we'll use that slack line to pull that deck over towards the minivan
and then add some bracing so i got some help now and as a result i totally missed uh filming when
we pulled the deck this way with a ratchet strap but that made it come out on this side
so now i've got the ratchet strap tied on here or slack line it's tied to the deck
goes underneath the cottage and the foundations are not suitable anchor points so i attached it
to the wheel of the minivan to have something to pull against and this was the previous attempt
at pushing that deck back in didn't work that well and then i got some more help while i was
finishing up the base of the stairs and that made filming difficult here i'm just showing
how i did the base of the steps trying to avoid ground contact with the wood to avoid more rot
yes can you climb up there oh
jump some more every step
well it's definitely rated for 40 pounds
and here's the new steps done and the substructure of the deck is also braced a lot more with the
middle post removed so that it's stable and not in danger of tipping off of its posts
and the deck has got this minor repair here the key to things like decks is it
doesn't rot at a consistent rate so if you're willing to fix just a few spots that are rotten
you can easily double the lifetime of a structure like this this one happens to be 33 years old
and this is sort of the opposite philosophy that somebody like april wilkerson would take which
is just tear it down and replace everything i've seen so many decks torn out where most
of the material was still good just fixing the bad parts it saves so much time and money
and when you only have limited time and you're somebody who says it has to be redone
well then nothing gets done and this way it's still usable and speaking of half-assed fixes uh
look at the foundations underneath here they're all very crooked and they've been braced basically
the soil here there's a lot of frost heaping and we didn't know what we were doing when we
made those and so the cottage was actually in danger of tipping off of its foundations
and back in 2009 that is 12 years ago i kind of re-leveled everything because
it was getting really crooked and i braced these foundations like well let's see how long it lasts
turns out 12 years and it's still going strong so there could be another 10 years in this foundation
hack it's surprising how long that has lasted but these foundations truly are a horrific hack
if i didn't know that they lasted as long as they did i wouldn't believe it and i made a video about
selling the camp last year but we decided not to sell it last year and now i'm saying well maybe
another year who knows we're just kind of attached to the place and it is nice having all seven
colleges and just filling them with friends when the family's here everybody their own cottage just
couldn't have that otherwise and i'm not sure how much these cottages actually have value in terms
of as a business because they are kind of obsolete in some ways in terms of what people expect so who
knows maybe a year from now we'll sell it maybe not you can see the shutters are closed on this
one because even though today is august the second there won't be anybody staying in this one for the
rest of the season so we shut it up already and here's a couple of shots walking around the camp
and showing the rest of the cottages i'm sure we will have to sell it eventually probably next year
and i've got a few more videos i shot in this camp linked right here right now
you