Whenever you buy something these days you are asked to pass judgment. Within days of your purchase the retailer will reach out with a series of questions: was it what you were expecting? Is it well made? Does it work as intended? The hope is that your answer will offer useful intelligence to the store and the manufacturer, not to mention other potential customers. This makes sense for a washing machine. It makes sense for a phone, a pair of shoes or a mop. But for a piece of damaged wood? Yet that's the assessment the email was asking for. And it was all because the ground had shifted. Literally.
This has nothing to do with politics. We're not talking abortion, we're not talking immigration, we're not talking Middle East policy, tariffs or DEI. We're talking dirt. After 20 plus years, our backup generator which sits on the side of the house had a pronounced tilt to it. I mean, if you really want to drag Washington into it, you could maybe perhaps possibly say that climate change had something to do with it. But just as likely it had to do with a 500-pound piece of machinery sitting on a gravel bed settling over 2 decades. So let's leave NOAA out of this one.
It wasn't a big deal, but it was noticeable. And it wasn't really a problem, as it's a pressurized device, and the oil circulates through it the same way to does through your car's engine when it's on a hill. But after talking to the techs that maintain it there were two possible issues. First, we might not get an accurate reading on the dipstick if it got too far out of true. Second, if it tipped too far, it might pull on the wires and hoses connecting it to the house. At the rate it was going it might be years (if ever) until that happened, but it seemed prudent to fix it on the next regular visit.
So when the guys finally came to do their usual scheduled maintenance, then reset it back to level. Ken suggested that it would probably be good if we reinforced the base, replacing the rotting boards in the frame and adding a few bags of gravel to stabilize it. He gave me a tip: go to Home Depot and look in the back of the lumber department. There they usually have damaged pieces of wood that they sell at a deep discount. And since this wood was going to be mostly buried and covered with rock, damaged was just fine. And so I had a project.
I went to the store, and sure enough, in the very back of the department was a 12-foot plank of pressure -treated wood that was mangled on one side. I chatted with the guy manning the floor, and he offered it to me for five bucks. He cut it to the lengths I needed, and I threw it on a cart along with a few bags of stone. I got it all home, lined up the planks around the gennie, banged a few steel stakes I had into the ground to hold them steady, and poured in the gravel. All in all, a few hours and $30 set us up for the next 20 years.
A few days later I got the follow up from Home Depot, asking me for a review of the lumber. "What features stand out the most?" Uh, the fact that it was that it was damaged. "What do you like about it? The damage. "Is there anything that would make it better?" More damage so I could get an even lower price. "How many stars would you give this product?" Since it was damaged it gets a five; had it been perfect it would have gotten a one.
In this case I'm not really sure that my review would help anyone. I guess I could give props to the tree that grew it, more to the poor handling that damaged it, and bonus points to the guy on the floor that marked it down to a pittance. But as to its suitability for use in a deck or fence, I'll let other more experienced carpenters weigh in.
I can't wait for them to ask me about the rocks.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford doesn't mind doing small projects around the house. His column appears weekly via email and online on Blogspot and Substack as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.
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