Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Stucco Removal Machine Returns

We've been chipping away at it again. With the deck structure and part of the stairs in place, we can access the main floor. I screwed a piece of plywood to the deck structure, and started ripping more off. We want to do it before we put on the new cedar decking, since cedar is soft, and the stucco would ruin the decking, even if we were really careful.

About half of the stucco is off this back section, enough to start the decking on the one side. Then we'll move the plywood down, and remove the rest.

We also took off the aluminum trim. There's still a plastic piece on the bottom though. It came off pretty easily.


Here's a shot of the landing a few days back.

And here's a shot of the stairs, looking down toward the landing. We have a lot of work to do on the bottom. The yard is sloped, so we have to build a small retaining wall at the bottom. I poured the footing yesterday, and I need to set up the formwork next. I have a bunch of small forms that I've used on other projects, that I can adapt to make a small retaining wall, then pour a small slab for the stairs to sit on. I started placing the posts tonight, and we'll start laying the decking tomorrow. We're using a hidden deck fastening system, so we still have to put those on first. They're metal channels that allow you to attach the decking from below. They're similiar to these ones. Although, I found out the ones I got can't be directly connected to ACQ lumber. I'm putting strips of tarpaper behind them, so they're not directly touching the toxic lumber. Looks like at least a week to go until we get the decking and handrails together. Hopefully we get enough dry weather in the next couple weeks, so we can stain the deck this year. We've had a really wet summer.

1 comment:

Ranty said...

I'm so glad to have found your posts about this! I am hoping to commence stucco removal on my own house this year, and have been search for info since I had no idea where to begin.

Thanks for posting your progress!