I acquired an adjoining piece of land which had an old mobile home and, attached to it, an old deck. The land was uphill of my property with full sun exposure and well suited for growing and rainwater harvesting. The timbers of the deck were protected from the rain by the roof of the deck and from the sun by an overtowering maple and were therefore in good condition. I decided to sell the mobile home and keep the deck, though for what purpose was unclear to me at the time.
The purchaser of the mobile home sent a professional crew to move it. Since the deck was not self standing and was attached to the mobile home, it was necessary to separate the two.
The moving truck has a powered hitch and when this was attached via chain to the deck uprights, it was easy for the crew to pull the deck away from the mobile. Then, after narrowly sliding past another maple tree, the truck and the mobile were on the road and gone.
My next steps were to repair the deck. The flooring sagged in the middle as did the roof. With the assistance of a bottlejack and odd lengths of 4×4 the base was levelled and supported with cinder blocks. Similarly, after the base was stabilized, the roof was jacked up and secured horizontally with 2×6’s and vertically with 4×4 posts, all bolted together. To keep the structure upright the ends were buttressed with diagonal 2×4’s.
Finally to the rain capture system. Although the east facing roof was horizontal as a result of the repairs, the west facing roof which was lower and to which the water drained, sagged in the middle. Since the storage tank was at the south end, the question was how to move all the rainwater to the storage tank. I decided to attach a lower fascia board (cedar fence plank) to the existing fascia boards and this enabled me to slant the gutters to a common low point from which I ran the downpipe to the storage tank.
The rainwater harvesting system works well and, since it is at the top of the hill, no pumping is required for irrigation. Now I have a use for the roof of the deck I must still find one for the deck itself. Perhaps a chicken coop?