Just a couple days to go before Ryder’s birthday party and I discovered that the tree that hit the tree house did more damage than I had previously thought. It broke one of the primary support members right in the middle which completely compromised the stability of the platform. I had to fix this before all the kids this weekend would pile on to it.
From the looks of it, I chose the wood poorly for two reasons. 1) it was undersized. It should have been an 2×10 or 2×12 to start with. 2) I chose a piece of lumber that had an elliptical knot right in the middle of it. So with a good impact on the deck and the support bean gave way at the weak spot, thankfully the facia board held things together so I didn’t lose the whole platform.
With only a day to spare, I was out in the rain attempting to weave a new much larger and heavier (this one weighs close to 150lbs) beam into place. I had to notch the slide support where it contoured the original, temporarily support the deck while I removed the broken beam and devise a way of hoisting the new one into place. My redneck engineering degree paid off and I’m confident this new system will support any and all kids that venture onto Ryder’s treehouse for years to come.
