On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 23:38:27 -0700, aspasia wrote:


And I guess there are only two risers, but isn't the distance from the
top step to the door sill an important distance too, and it seems as
high as the second riser.

Riser from top step to second step is 9". (It's only supposed to be
6".) Bottom riser is 6".

That you said before, but then there is an additional step up to the
door sill, and it looked like about 9 inches too.

6 + 9 + 9 = 24 / 3 = 8, so that might be okay.
Divided by 4 = 6 would be better if you say it's supposed to be
6 inches. (That's probably what I have too, but I can't remember
numbers well.)

So that would mean three steps before the sill instead of the two you
have now.

A picture is truly worth a thousand words.

Hope you will check out these pictures and give your
input. So far, I only have one bid for wood steps and
hand rail,which is fine with me. (see earlier in this thread).

I thought this was an additional bid since the thread started. The
guy is asking 4600 for WOOD steps!!!!! I rarely hire anyone to do
anything, but that strikes me as ridiculous to the absurd. Is he
making them out of ebony and teak?

And was that a reasonable price? Less than your grant? Including I
suppose removal of the first steps. Which I suppose requires breaking
them up first, a nothing job for someone who owns an electric jack
hammer, but more work for someone who has to rent one or do it some
other way.

As I posted earlier, my grant was for $4000, and the only bid I
received was $625 over. I asked the City if they could up the grant;
am awaiting reply.

I don't think they should, but maybe they have a list of fairly priced
contractors and carpenters.

The only bidder hasn't replied to my follow-up query, so she must have
decided she's not interested.

*******That's why I originally posted on this NG -- asking where I
could look for a contractor/handman other than the Yellow Pages.*****


TIA for your advice.

Your bid might be fine. Is it for two steps or three? I don't have a
computer tape measure, but it seems like you need 3.

Most definitely.

OK, I hadn't read this far when I wrote what was above, but I don't
like to delete.

If one is shorter than the others, shouldn't it be the lowest step?
Or if it is custom made, will they be the same, even though that might
make each less than standard? People do standard height steps without
thinking.

If custom made -- seems like the only option -- they should be the
same.

I have maybe the least experience in many things of anyone here, but
on a good day I have ideas, some zany, and many questions. Here, I
wonder if you can buy a pre-fab 3step cement steps, and how much prep
has to be done to put it in place.

I doubt strongly if such a thing exists!

They certainly have 2-step prefab cement steps, and frankly I think
they have 3-step, but I said I wonder, to encourage others to reply.

With my news reader and the settings I use, this thread is very far up
and I have to hunt for it, but another guy said that with his
newsreader, all new posts come to the fore. But no one else is
posting on this thread but you and me, so I may violate some rule and
post this here and again at the bottom with a slightly different
thread name. Look for both.

BTW for me to do this, I can't just change the Subject and post. I
have to start a blank post and copy the text into it. Otherwise there
is hidden information (in the References header) that will keep the
posts in the same thread even if the Subject changes, if that switch
is on in Agent, and probably under some circumstances in other news
clients.

And will it sink, when lighter wooden steps won't. I would think
that neither would sink, given that your current steps have packed the
earth down very well.

Agreed! After all these decades (I am the 2nd owner) it should be!

And what kind of nice railing could be built for prefab cement steps.

And I think wood will require painting every few years, but what bout
that "wood" from recycled plastic they use for decks these days. A
little more expensive but no maintenance required.
.
[...]

Because this group gets so much traffic, this post was pretty high up
from the bottom, and often I don't see followups that are this far up.
With Agent and maybe other pprograms, even if you start a new thread
with the new thread button, if it is called by the same Subject, it
will thread together and I still will see it only way high up. I call
it the Psychology of Computers, when I try to figure out how programs
I have never used work with my email and news posts.

Do you receive your posts "threaded" by Subject, or by Date?

The first post in every thread is in order by date, and the rest of
each thread follows immediately after the first. When I collapse all
the threads, I see only first posts and they are in order by date,
oldest first.

But I can change how long posts are kept, so when posts get old and
get deleted, that changes the first post in the thread and the whole
thread gets sorted to be further down. If a long time has gone by,
there can be a late-arriving post that shows up at the very bottom!

And I can Keep posts so they never disappear. And other features.

If by Date, mine should be near the top.

Why do you say that? I probably keep posts longer than you do so for
me this thread is in the middle.

In other groups I save posts for 2 or 3 years. In this one because
there is so much traffic, and because I dl all the bodies, I can only
save about 2000 posts at a time, but for some reason the earliest
non=Kept post I have is about 16 days old. That would be only 100 and
something per day and we get more than that, so I don't get it, but
don't have time to figure it out now.

Because it's still sorted by the first post in the thread, this thread
is about in the middle.

If "threaded", all you have to do is click on the + and it will
unthread the posts to that Subject.

Yeah I know. I see you are using Agent also. I looked at version 2
but didn't like its appearance iirc. I like to keep all threads with
"unread" posts expanded.

Thanks for your interest and help.

aspasia