[Hank70SS]

Brian, sounds like a good vacation. We visited Utah and several other western states a few years ago. The Grand Canyon is definitely impressive but Utah, wow! That whole state could be a national park, Bryce Canyon was my favorite.

Tony, sorry to hear about the damage, didn't realize you got hit hard by the storm.

I've been kind of busy too. We had the beam replaced on the 2nd story deck. It was 2 2x12s, 22' 9" long married together. The ends were rotting and a previous owner had replaced the 4x4 posts with steel posts. The numbskull sat the posts on top of the concrete patio below which wasn't designed to hold that much wait. End result of the rot and concrete slab sinking was the outside corners of the deck sagging.

Had a steel i-beam installed to replace the wood. By going to steel we could get by with 2 posts instead of 4. I removed all the screens on the deck because I didn't want the frames buckling when they lifted the corners up. It was also an opportunity to paint the posts holding the roof. It's all painted now and I have some of the screens back in, should finish that up today.

It's a lot cleaner look with only 2 posts and the i-beam is 8"x8". That's only 3.5" smaller, in height, than the 2x12 but it opened up the view a lot. It was sure interesting watching them lift the i-beam up. An 8"x8" i-beam weighs 31 lbs/ft. So at 22'9" it weighs a little over 700lbs.

Glad everyone is doing well, sorry about the storm damage Tony.