When the first denizens of soybomb moved into the new HQ at 156 bathurst, one of the first interesting things discovered was that the roof above was a flat 3000 square-feet surface. The downside was that there was NO access. We had to place a rickety home made 2x4 ladder off the rickety fire escape to get up there. Dangerous AND annoying. Then to our eternal happiness the landlord (who is an all-round AWESOME dude) had forced air units (for heating and cooling) installed on the roof. This was a bonus becasue the first winter was a brutal experience. Hot water rads hooked to a 70 year old boiler that NEVER seemed to work. The next and immediately obvious bonus, was a trap door to the roof that was installed above the stairwell. It turns out that by modern code, roof units have to have constant access to them. this requires a trap-door if there isn't already an opening in place. This meant that WE had constant (somewhat) easy access to the roof now!
The first thing we did was set up a rickety ladder ( i see a trend here) to the trapdoor and hangout! Then after much observation i noted that while it was awesome to hangout on the roof, we didn't want to puncture the 70 year-old roof's tar membrane by crunching a stone through it with our shoes and have a drip onto any of our varied electronics! So we started designing a patio.
As luck would have it, i acquired about 60 or so 10' 4x4s leftover after a factory pit-forming job. These were placed on 12" centers straddling 3.5" wide 2" thick slats of Styrofoam. The Styrofoam absorbs the weight place unevenly upon stones that sit proud. So that rather than pressing the stone down into the roof, it is instead absorbed into the yielding body of the Styrofoam. Voila! Now with the 4x4s placed on 12" centers, there was on average only a 7.5" gap between them. this is Far less than the usual 14.5 " gap usually present in deck and framing structures. This means we could get away with using a cheap inferior and easy to replace decking. We used 1x3 spruce strapping. Cheap and plentiful.
We thought we were lucky getting an overcast day in the middle of summer to do this. It turned out to be very hot and muggy for one (thus the lack of shirts!), and it urns out that cloud cover does little to stop UV. The UV index for that day was STAGGERING! All of us burned. Some badly. And I NEVER burn!
Nate (on the right) is one of the original residents of soybomb. Adam (middle) moved in after Nate moved out. Suzanne (right) moved in shortly before that.
Deck is taking shape!
I bet Nate is browner in this pic than in earlier ones!
also... the damn cheap nail coils kept jamming!
The slats used for decking were sealed on the bottom side before being fastened to the 4x4s. The idea being that if the pieces were completely sealed, they would have a much greater longevity than they would otherwise. Given the lower quality of the boards, this was a necessity. After the deck was completely clad, it was sealed over the entire surface including nails + holes. This sealed the boards completely against moisture (for a time)
Kumiko (the cat) comes out to appreciate the work performed by her servants.
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