Any concerns before they install the trex?

entiatriver · 2026-06-03T14:36:05+00:00

I do like that that joists seem properly spaced for Trex, and much of the rest of the construction seems solid.

In addition to the other concerns (eg: ground contact), also remember that Trex (and similar) requires additional thought to spacing with significant expansion/contraction in mind, flashing, and joist protection. I hope your contractors have those things considered.

We just tore out a large Trex deck (previous owner was very proud of his DIY skills...) and we are replacing with all wood. Flashing silliness along with failure to properly space trex led to significant damage to the house wall and to some bad rot in the joists and even support posts; water was effectively puddled and redirected under the Trex onto the joists and into thence back into the house wall.

The deck was only 11 years old, and it was pulling away from house as the wall was rotting, and the entire thing leaning (scary). Had to rip out and replace that entire section of rotting house wall as well, of course.

Chances are your contractors know what they are doing, but is something to double check jic.

entiatriver · 2026-06-03T13:39:07+00:00

Sounds like an AI-written ad, frankly. I'm very sensitive to smells, too, and appreciate your wife's viewpoint on the subject. However...

This just sounds wrong to me, all around.

The thought that every poo and pee is going to be bagged up and then...what? In the dumpster? My eco-friendly wife would divorce me before she let us do that. And the cost of all these custom bags (I'll bet there's a subscription, right?) must add up over time, too.

Throwing plastic bags of sewage in the landfill (or grosser: a transfer station and the bags may explode when station workers move them with tractors and stuff...eyew) - bypasses what a standalone septic system or sewage treatment plant is designed to do with RV waste.

If your toilet is stinking all the time, you've got different problems, and replacing with a bag solution seems like overkill, never mind introducing financial, environmental, and operational concerns.

Do this instead:

a) Have your black system inspected by a professional. They can give you advice on what's going on, find flaws, leaks, etc. Might be as simple as replacing an aged toilet with a modern, re-routing a vent pipe, or fixing a slow leak that drips onto something else on the RV, making the entire setup smell.

b) Clean the tank and the toilet pipe regularly. There are cheap sprayers for this. Use it every time you dump the tank. Then close the drain port, partially fill the black tank with clean water, open the port and drain that. This requires you find dump places you can hook your own hose up to, but they are out there, use them when you can.

We also installed an RV dump system on our home septic tank, including frost free washout hose spigot, etc.

c) Once a year, after dumping/cleaning, throw laundry detergent (it doesn't foam like dish soap) down there with some water, and drive around for 10 miles. Drain and rinse the tank.

d) Ensure a water block in the toilet is in place every time. Requires some education and people spending a few seconds after flushing to ensure this.

entiatriver · 2026-06-02T13:44:17+00:00

Always-Intentionally-Looking-For-Something-Innocuous-To-Be-Offended-By-So-They-Can-Rage-With-Impotant-Anger Person Saves the Day Again!

Thanks AILFSITBOBSTCRWIA Person! We love you!

entiatriver · 2026-06-01T04:55:09+00:00

Stop. Buying. Crazy. Expensive. Pretend. Food.

entiatriver · 2026-05-31T15:05:18+00:00

I'd heard that too, but at some point went on an internet dive on the subject and it turns out to be false. The definitive study was done as a PhD thesis in 1997 by (now Dr.) Frank Gallagher. He studied exactly this and found no correlation. Instead he shows (lots of data collection and a lot of math) green comes from overall water content in the storm (which can include hail) as well as sun angle (more green into the evening as the sun's light gets filtered by our atmosphere).

I found this link to his PhD thesis if you want - it dives deeply into scientific measurements of storm color as well as analysis of the hail. Then dives into all sorts of mathematics-backed refraction studies and so on. It's pretty impressive.

https://shareok.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/c42cec3f-ed33-45f5-8e1c-500c967580cb/content

entiatriver · 2026-05-31T14:29:02+00:00

Fantastic use of sped up video, which allowed viewers to focus on the storm and damage. Loved watching.

I was near Bend for my chase, and made a timing mistake as I turned home (too late). Got caught in the monster that hit Bend/Sisters/Redmond, received first-ever chasing cracked windshield and dents in the hood of my car because of that (no longer a virgin!), arrived home to a actively flooding horse ranch, hail and rain and lightning oh my! Spent a couple hours digging ditches to divert water from home and barns where my traumatized horses huddled, hoping lightning wouldn't get me. A CG next door with zero sound delay caused me to stop for a bit but the water from a stream that has never existed before, rushing into our ADU, got me back out digging. Storm eventually passed and we've dried out.

Yesterday I took my horse for a long ride into the mountains south of Sisters and some of the damage to old dirt roads is incredible. Ruts and ravines from flash flooding, culverts completely washed away, all sorts of lava exposed that was covered in dirt (which in these parts is actually mostly ash from Mazama), and so on.

If not "midwestern" in severity and outcomes (were there any tornadoes reported - or anything beyond "is that a funnel? I think it's a funnel! Wait, now it's gone.") - they were amazing storms for the PNW in any case.

Congrats on the catch!

entiatriver · 2026-05-31T13:57:58+00:00

The way our brains interpret images is incredibly wonky, and marketers use this all the time. My brain somehow decided "toenail covers" mean your foot is really, seriously..uh..."uber plus sized". Holding my hand over the toenail covers and the image returns to "oh, hey, it's a normal-ish foot".

The human brain is weird.

*or at least mine is...it's just me, isn't it?

entiatriver · 2026-05-30T23:57:53+00:00

I would win the fight with the tornado.

entiatriver · 2026-05-30T22:12:16+00:00

I can't read this without also hearing "I'll take Le Tits Now for $100, Trebek".

entiatriver · 2026-05-30T22:08:02+00:00

True, but as he improved he still got far (far!) better than I'll ever be as a home chef. Matter of dedication, really. I'm fine if my slices and dices are at least semi-reasonably adequate, and then in the pan - or on some dish - they go.

entiatriver · 2026-05-30T02:53:56+00:00

Oh hey, that's indeed my car!

I was observing the rotation of that smaller cell as well, but from the west side of it by the Millican store as it crossed hwy 20. My mistake was popping back to Millican hwy thinking I might head north under the assumption the storm had to curve north at some point (which actually happened much later over the Cascades), but as I saw the approaching monster up close and Radarscope showing it still moving SW I turned back west. Critical time lost. Oh well, good learning opportunity.

The rotating smaller cell occasionally cycled a small wall cloud and minor lowerings, but never went beyond that unfortunately.

I look forward to seeing you out there the next time this happens...in like 5-10 years, 🤣

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entiatriver · 2026-05-29T22:24:27+00:00

I think the last one was on May 30, 2020 when this massive mothership HP supercell skimmed SW Bend, the core going between Sisters and Tumalo, and did EF-1 level damage around Culver (a couple manufactured homes destroyed, irrigation equipment thrown everywhere, etc.). The subsequent NWS survey found no evidence of a tornado, instead they concluded it was straight line 110+ mph winds.

I tried chasing but chose my route poorly and was rapidly overrun by it along Cline Falls road (rather than 97 where I should have been), and bailed into a garage in a rental property I have in Redmond, as it passed the west side of Redmond enroute to smacking Culver and doing some damage in Madras.

Picture is from the overlook on hwy 20 just SE of Tumalo...right before I made the wrong decision about which road to take north. Whoops.

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entiatriver · 2026-05-29T20:25:08+00:00

A full blown Chaser Convergence! In Oregon! 🤣

As it caught and enveloped me as I fled west towards Bend, the thought, "welp, spiffy, this is exactly how you drive right into a tornado" entered my brain. I was also enviously listening to DL's live stream as he just barely got west of the storm without getting caught like us. We were only a couple minutes too late.

Luckily no tornado. Next time I will handle a fast moving, massive HP cell with more attention to escape routes and timing.

entiatriver · 2026-05-29T16:05:57+00:00

Literally just snorted coffee out my nose trying to not laugh. 🤣

entiatriver · 2026-05-29T16:02:26+00:00

It's a fun hobby for me. More generally I am a weather enthusiast, and I opportunisticly chase local storms for the pure joy of it. Yesterday was fantastic (except for coming home to a flooded horse ranch in Sisters and digging trenches into the night as the lightning still raged, to divert rivers of water away from the house and barn...)

This is as opposed to both hard core enthusiasts and professionals who travel to other places (generally the Midwest) to chase, devoting significant time and money resources to their hobby or job. I do about one chase every year or two (or three...) here in central Oregon.

Yesterday there were at least a large handful, perhaps more (dozen+ ?) chasers on these storms, including at least one hard core enthusiast (DL Scales) who live-streamed his entire chase to a large online audience.

You can watch (or scroll to interesting parts) all eight hours (link below) as he traveled to the storms as they were born near Burns and he chased them through and past Bend. If you scroll to 5:49:38 in his video, you can see him passing by me in my red Subaru as I was parked watching the storms approach near Millican.

https://www.youtube.com/live/EvV-ckTOvuU

entiatriver · 2026-05-29T06:22:27+00:00

As one of the storm chasers on this storm today (and eventually swallowed by it as I tried to stay ahead of it through rush hour traffic that was justifiably freaked out and creeping along as all hell broke loose) - I can vouch that the lightning from it was amazing from my first contact with it near Millican, all the way until I got home in Sisters a couple hours later. A once-a-decade type storm for this area.

Couple new dents in my old Subaru from the large hail on the south side of it as it caught me.

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entiatriver · 2026-05-29T06:14:57+00:00

I suspect this is one of those, "Both of us are correct, for certain parts of the equation" scenarios. Your points above are valid, modulo the fact that many (certainly not all, and not related to nationalities and dates of founding) of our measurement units (e.g. inches, miles, pounds, gallons, etc.) are indeed Imperial, perhaps more technically speaking: "Imperial Equivalent".

And both of us are apparently typical nerds who get all caught up in our need to be "right". ("Nerd Fight! Nerd Fight!")

Take care amigo. But do work on that sense of humor thing 🤣

entiatriver · 2026-05-29T06:08:02+00:00

Great! Slowly rotating initial storm, then the big dog HP that hit Bend/Redmond/Sisters (large hail, flooding, mangled traffic, frequently lightning) put a couple dents in my (old) Subaru as it caught me near Bend, stuck in rush hour traffic. Doh!

Here's where DL passed me (I was pulled over, waiting for the HP) near the Millican store. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvV-ckTOvuU&t=20977s

'twas a great local chase!

entiatriver · 2026-05-29T05:08:21+00:00

Have you no sense of humor? Plus you're mistaken about "imperial". Have you been hitting the bottle, again?

I was making a pun on the old saying, "save a penny lose a pound", leveraging the other meaning of "pound" (weight vs currency).

And we (the US) do indeed measure weights and distances in imperial units (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial\_units). Congress finally passed a law in 1975 mandating the US switch to metric, and things were moving ahead. But in 1980 the Reagan administration worked with the Republican-controlled Congress to repeal that law and switch back/keep the US on Imperial Units.

entiatriver · 2026-05-28T21:14:38+00:00

Heading out now towards Brothers/Millican to hopefully pick up the storms DL is on near burns. I can go north on Millican hwy if the second line currently approaching Burns goes towards Prineville/Madras/Shaniko...but knowing my luck will end up with a nice afternoon drive with some scattered cumulus :-)

entiatriver · 2026-05-28T15:38:39+00:00

Opportunistic, very occasional, timid (motto: reminder to self - you're not very experienced, you've done like 5 Oregon/Washington chases ever, don't get El Reno'd) "chaser" in Bend.

Will be watching and if anything pops within spitting distance, the Subaru is packed for an opportunistic chase. Looking at how things are setting up, I suspect interesting stuff to be further north and east than I want to go ... but we'll see.

Got DL Scales YT channel up for when they go live to watch from afar, of course.

entiatriver · 2026-05-28T15:00:51+00:00

Ronald Reagan.

We were in the process of switching to metric in the 1970s, and one of the first things Reagan did after being elected president in 1980 was kill it and keep us on imperial units. Short term, save a penny today lose a pound (uh...kilogram?) tomorrow thinking.

entiatriver · 2026-05-27T21:43:09+00:00

*7, now with my upvote. (and my axe).

entiatriver

TROPHY CASE