The aluminum railings were installed following a two-hour delay owing to a shortage of pickets.
In past years, interior projects would continue for me well into the spring and summer, forcing deck projects and other exterior builds to often take place on weekends.
As a result, enjoying summer weekends with family and friends rarely happened. More recently, however, work weeks from May through to September have been reserved for exterior builds — so a common goal these days is to make sure all my jobs are completed during the week.
Following a composite deck build about a month ago, the homeowners decided to add an aluminum railing, so the parts were ordered from a supplier.
Thankfully I had a day available in my schedule to get it all installed, so on a beautiful and sunny Thursday morning, I loaded up the truck with the railing and fasteners. Because the job was near St. Malo Beach, and the installation would only take a couple of hours, my fiancée, Carole, decided to tag along. We loaded both mountain bikes up and looked forward to hitting the park trails about noon, once the railings were installed.
At the jobsite it became apparent there had been a miscalculation with the required number of pickets — these oversights do sometimes happen.
The only way to make it right was to drive back to Winnipeg and grab what was missing, which took about two hours. Other than being a mild nuisance, Carole and I could still get to the bike trails shortly after 2 p.m. — provided the railing installation went as planned.
The aluminum posts were positioned and fastened to the top decking first. The upper and lower supports were then cut to length and placed within the sleeves of the posts at each section. Finally, the individual pickets (of which we now had enough) were then inserted along each section of railing and the aluminum railing was complete. After taking a few photos and loading the tools back into the truck, it was 2 p.m. and our delayed cycling excursion was now within reach.
Or was it?
Moments after entering the truck my iPhone beeped a familiar sound, the ping from my alarm-monitoring company. My phone then displayed a power-outage notification, which seemed odd, given the fact there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Upon reviewing the Manitoba Hydro outages map, there were no other reports of power out near our property. A sinking feeling came over me — if it was just OUR property, it surely wasn’t a good sign.
In addition to my worry, a sustained power outage creates a series of beeps through the alarm system, which drives our dog Milo completely bonkers, so we decided to skip our cycling plans for the day and return home and see what was up.
We were only a few minutes from home when my phone rang and it was a friend who works for Manitoba Hydro. He reported that the load on a truck had shifted on the highway and clipped the overhead line that supplies our property. Not only had the line been severed, the pole the transformer is mounted on had also snapped like a twig.
When we arrived home a Hydro crew was already on the job. We were very happy to learn no one had been hurt. In short order the old broken pole was removed and new poles were set in place and a fresh transformer was mounted. Watching the crews work was both fun and informative.
The lesson learned here is, no matter the task at hand, sometimes obstacles do get in our way — but the show must go on.
And for the power to stay on we rely on the professionals from Manitoba Hydro — great job, folks!
RenoBoss.Inc@outlook.com
