Year: 2011

We got home from work yesterday and were surprised to find we had no new email. We then realized there was no internet access. That explains that. I went into the living room and turned on the TV, nothing but snow. Because I already had an errand to run and the Cable Co office is like a 1/2 mile away, I opted to stop by instead of dealing with voice mail hell.

The woman at the office tried some things with no success, so we set up a repair appointment for today. When I got home I went over to check the junction box and what do do know, cable wires coming out, but nothing going in. I looked up at where the cable runs through a hook on the soffit and the hook was bent straight. Odd, the junction box nor the splitter inside looked damaged, did someone need a 100′ of coaxial cable? I walked to the street, crossed it and walked up to the pole where the cable comes from. Somebody didn’t steal the cable, it still headed up the pole and the length of the cable was neatly coiled at the base.

Tuesday was trash day and I figured that the truck the city uses to pick up the yard waste, AKA: The Jaws of Death, most have somehow yanked it down while picking up vegetable matter from in front of the house across the street. I called the Cable Co and let them know what I had discovered.

Today at 12:30 a tech called me at work to tell me he was just leaving my house and he let me know he replaced the cable from pole to home as it had a couple of squirrel induced damage spots. He could see my modem was online with his computer, so he figured he had the thing fixed, but to give a call if when we got home the TV wasn’t working (it was.) He modified my theory of the incident slightly because the cable end wasn’t damaged and it makes a lot of sense. The truck probably hit the cable just enough to yank it out of the hook on the soffit, leaving it dangling low across the street. A city worker probably manually disconnected it from the splitter and rolled it up under the pole so as not to endanger any traffic on the street. It sure would have been nice if they reported the issue to the Cable Co, the issue might have even been fixed before we got home…

The back deck project is finished for all intensive purposes. I have to try one thing and if it works out, there may be about an hour of staining left to do.

Saturday morning we got an early start to beat the heat. Donna and friend Joan went for a walk and I went out to put the top trim boards on the railing around the deck. I didn’t buy any screws because I had a bunch of 1-5/8″ deck screws left over from a long ago project. The first thing I did was to drill pilot holes in the already cut to length and shape boards. I used the old boards as a guide to get the right amount of holes but made sure I was slightly off so as to not try and use an old hole for the new screw.

I grabbed my old screws and instantly thought they are too light in color compared to the dark brown (Brazilian Walnut) decking boards I had purchased at Home Depot. But I opted to try a couple to see if they would be that noticeable after they were sunk in the piece of decking. Two screws were all it took to realize that they didn’t get hidden enough and really stood out.

So I drove the 1 mile over to Home Depot to buy some darker screws. They had on the shelves screws in gray, forest green, silver, tan and my best option choice – brown. I took my 1lb. box of brown composite deck screws home and tried a few. I started the first two in the holes of the previously tried tan leftover screws. Not bad, but they will have to do considering what my options were. The third screw I tried, in a virgin hole, went down and stopped with he head above the board before spinning uselessly stripped. I tried one more with the same results. I backed out the 1-5/8″ screws, tossed them back in the box they came out of and drove back to Home Depot to return them.

This time I bought 2-1/2″ screws. The color selection was the same, so I took them home in the same brown color. Wouldn’t you think that a store that sold two kinds of composite deck boards, both in a dark brown shade, would carry dark brown composite deck screws? The 2-1/2″ screw heads sunk in just fine while holding down the top boards, but they were about a 1/4″ too long for outside trim boards and they stuck out a bit from the bottom. Once I finally got going, I finished the job in about an hour. The one pound box turned out to hold just the right amount for my job as there were only three screws left over.

When I opened the second 1lb. plastic box, right there on top, was a brochure showing all the variations of the Grip Rite Prime Guard Plus composite deck screws. The second color illustrated was dark brown and it would have been a perfect match. To add insult to injury, they also offer it in a #8 x 2″ long version that would have been the perfect size. So I guess in 20 years when the composite boards need replacing I’ll pre-order my screws.