Sore, So Sore

This construction stuff is hard work for us office types.

I’ve been at it all week from about 3pm till 8pm and the deck looks like a deck.  The frame went up one day along with the footings, the joists another day and then onto the deck boards, I am about 1/3 of the way through them.

The deck boards are screwed down and are the most painful thing to work with, the deck isn’t quite high enough to sit under but is just to high for me to lay on my back and reach the screws.  My shoulders, arms and necks ache so much this morning, I might have a night off.

But on to my rant,

First of all, dimensional lumber, why isn’t it what it says it is, a 2×10x14 board should be 2 inches by 10 inches by 14 feet, but no, it is 1.5 inches, by 9.5 inches by 14 feet 1 inch!, or 14 feet 1/2 inch.  Why isn’t the wood the size it is claiming to be.  I build a deck that is 14 feet wide, the deck board claims to be 6 inch wide, so I need 28 pieces?  Not at all, I need 30 pieces!

And then there is the Trex.  Dimensional lumber’s inaccurate lengths I can blame on it being a natural product, so why then is Trex so inaccurate?  It is made in a factory, the grain on it is identical, the board is supposed to be true, yet I still end up having over an inch of variable length and the board has twists in it that I have to correct when I screw it down.

I guess Trex just wants to be SO like wood it has some of wood’s irritating qualities too?

Only 1600 screws left to put in……