Updated 1-30-23
Fixing a ramp and steps that were put in upside down… The steps.
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Building A Ramp & Backwards Stairs???
Here’s something that you won’t see all the time. They put these steps in upside down and I said that the step part should have been right here.
We will fix it so that these are sitting properly. It’s quite an ordeal. But we’re also gonna put in a 4′ wide ramp, 10′ that way by their request.
They want it 10 foot long so we’re going to move all this stuff and do that. [The guys broke away to do that, and now are back.] Catch with you a bit.
All right, so we took all that off. Which is a little bit of a journey. There’s quite a few screws and nails that couldn’t or wouldn’t come out. They were stripped or heads broke off, but we ended up taking it all apart. We took all the pieces and got them all cleaned up it’s just elbow grease and hard work.
Starting the ramp
We then measured over and marked out where a 4×4 would be, and drilled out the corners with the bit. I’m using up all my batteries which probably should be using electric and cutting this stuff out so I can slide a 4×4 in there. I’ll put a piece of concrete down here for it to sit on then we’ll have the beginning and, make everybody happy to have it.
The supports they’re going through, I’m going to have three of them, and I’ll mark them on that board. Then I measured in between but I want something for it to fasten through on each side I’ll probably go from the back side also. So this is 21 and 5/8 and I’ll mark that over here.
All right, the ramp is going to be coming down at an angle. So, if you went straight up tight to these boards would be higher. So, I’m going to let it drop down a little bit.
I’m not going to adjust it, that way it will be there to support this frame underneath.
Do you need coated screws?
I get people that talk about using coated screws and everything I find that more than twice as expensive, and some of the decks that I built 26 or 27 years ago are still there.
So, the idea that these screws would damage your deck has not proven so in nearly 30 years. So, I would say the proof is in the pudding, anyway.
What I did next was I brought a board up here and set it to the bottom and there was a gap at the top. You see the gap right there? You need to be a little lower, but I measured that gap and that’s how much I got to cut out the bottom.
Now, I’ve also got to angle cut the bottom there, which I’ll have to there’s probably a mathematical equation to it. But I’ll probably have to cut it and then see how it falls out on this rough terrain.
And then once I get one, then I’ll make three of them and I have my supports. All right. So I’ve cut two times and finally got the angle that I liked and I’m marking so that each one will be the same.
Now, I’m going to come up right up to there, maybe just a little bit lower. Use my knee to hold it in place, I want at least three.
I’ll try to get something. We’ll need to square it, so I’ll do that in a minute I’ll just put a framing square on it, a little shape tool.
Now I need to measure 21.58 like I did. Some boards they wish me to reuse that way they can save some money. See how I held it down about that half inch, and how it’s not interfering.
So, if i went to the bottom here it would have interfered right here. So, you see why I didn’t take it all the way up. You might keep that in mind when you’re working on your projects.
Make sure you stay square
Now we’re ready to put that here, I want to get it up against the board there. At least in a temporary fashion, at the bottom push down on that lift up here. So, I worried about it moving. Mark where it’s going to be, and then you know if it moved.
All right now, get that framing square and make sure it’s kind of square. Then I’ll put my 4x4s. I usually don’t like to set them way out here in the end, because it doesn’t give you much room to get on from the side.
I don’t make them as high as everybody else. I want you to be able to put your weight on them sit on them look over top of them since you’re in there if you notice it’s sitting gonna look through the rail. When I set them up they can look over the top of the handrails, that’s the key.
So, here we go I think I’ll start up there and I’ll just work our way down after we get it squared up. I’m gonna put one. I’m gonna line this thing up with my line which is the same on that side, then put a screw in it. There we go.
I would expect this not to be here very long, but not because I’m making it where it’ll fall apart.
All right so, the next thing you’ll see us do is we’ll cut all these four foot. Which I bought 12 foot material and I’ll probably start from the top and work our way down and we can readjust that one if we need too. So, that’s what we’re doing next.
Oh, you there. So, what we did this distance from here right here. We did it from the bottom here to here and put these steps in like they should be. Of course, we had to dig it out set it in right, and then we’re go we cut down the boards that were there to begin with. And a couple that were underneath and we’re putting them in I think we’re going to dig this one out a little bit.
That way we’re going to put everything together with screws, and we’ll show you what it looks like when we get there.
Hammers for more than pounding nails
Yeah, that’s yours, that’s what Clay used to dig with straight claw hammers from harbor freight, I think.
So, it’s a digging tool so we’ll have to use that right there.
Oh yeah, it’s all fastened. We actually put an extra little bit of support underneath so it would not be bouncing at all.
But we just did that to because we had the wood, and we could do that for kindness and support. We’ll take you along while we do the handrails.
Pencil Sized Gap Between Boards
Okay, and the guy who’s running the camera is telling me to remind you guys that what we used a pencil to space the boards. That way that water doesn’t stay there and make it a sheet of ice.
You could still have a sheet of ice there, but that doesn’t allow this stuff to rot against each other either. But it’s also similar to the deck. If you notice, so we’re getting there when we started like.