If you read my post from last month about what happened with our deck, you already know part of the story. I have been dealing with the insurance company since then, and we still don’t know if they will pay the claim. They had me send photos, then sent out an adjuster to look at the damage, and finally, today, they sent an engineer. The engineer told me flat out he doesn’t work for the insurance company. He was hired as an independent contractor to try to determine why the deck separated from our house. I took him out back and explained what happened. He looked it over, without me watching (okay, I peeked from inside), and made a determination to file a report.

I talked to him afterwards. In his opinion, the reason the deck separated from the house is that the contractor who built it used incorrect bolts to secure it. I told him my husband had suggested that it shouldn’t have been anchored to the sill at all. He thought it should have been anchored to the concrete. The engineer said it can be anchored to the sill, but the bolts have to go all the way through the wood. The bolts the contractor used some 20 years ago did not. The sill had rotted out partially, and it all let go. He stressed that it was not our fault – we couldn’t have seen it happening because the deck is in front of all of the rot.

As I said, this all happened 20 years ago. We’ve kept up with maintenance. The railings and floor of the deck were Trex products and held up great. The fact that the deck is nearly intact after what happened speaks volumes about how solid it was. The support was all treated lumber and wasn’t rotted, unlike the sill on the house. A few years back, there were issues with the stairs, and we had a friend who is a carpenter replace them. It was not neglected.

I’d seen the contractor who built the deck around town over the years, so I know he’s still around. I thought it would be a good idea to let people know what had happened and what an ENGINEER had determined was the cause. I wanted to let anyone else who might have had work done by him know to check it. I posted in one of our local groups and suggested people check their decks, especially if someone named Daryl had built it. I can’t remember his last name, since it was 20 years ago. There’s a file cabinet downstairs that might have information in it, but I don’t care enough to try to figure it out. If someone had been seriously hurt, I’d have a different attitude, but things can be replaced. People can’t.

The keyboard warriors came out. I have to wonder how so many people who seem to think they know everything have nothing to do at around 11 AM on a Monday. Don’t people have jobs? They started by insisting it had to be neglect. It wasn’t. They started insisting other things were wrong, which weren’t. One made a comment about a barrier between the deck and the sill to prevent moisture from going through. If people bothered to look at the pictures at all, they’d see the copper that was between the treated lumber of the deck and the sill among the debris. In the picture above it stretches right across the rooftop car carrier.

I kept stressing that I’d had an ENGINEER here who said this. It wasn’t something I drew out of my ass. He inspected the damage. He has an education in these things, and this was the determination that he made. Yet all these keyboard warriors came out to tell me they knew differently. I kept stressing I just wanted people to know to look at the work done if they had it done by the same contractor, as near as I could tell. Finally, I just shut off the comments.

In their minds, I guess I was supposed to listen to some random person on the internet over an engineer and hang my head in shame. One person commented that I was embarrassing myself. By being concerned for people’s safety? I looked at his profile, and he was a Trump supporter who didn’t live here or have any ties to our area. Doesn’t live here and didn’t ever live here. Instant block as he’s just trolling and not worth my time. Any of these people who commented, I would not want to work on my house. They were bending themselves over backwards to make excuses for someone after an engineer had weighed in on the issue.

To top it off, when Daryl had built the deck, he installed the railings and balusters wrong. He said we should have the “nice” view, not everyone on the outside. The first winter, we found out why this is not a good idea. We went to shovel snow, and the balusters were popping off. We had to turn them around which we did on all but 2 of the sections and the screws had been stripped and couldn’t be turned. We put the grill and planters in front of them so no one would fall against them accidentally.

I’m hoping this means the insurance company will pay on the claim. It’s already been almost a month. I’m pretty much resigned to the fact that we won’t get any use out of it this summer. Most of the reputable contractors around here are busy this time of year, and trying to get the work done presents a challenge. (If they’re not busy, I have to wonder why.)

When you come across these keyboard warriors on any issue, there’s no sense trying to deal with them. They believe they know better than everyone else and won’t listen to anything different. If the facts don’t jive with their opinion, it’s the facts that are wrong, not them. I’m supposed to believe that all of these people have free time to debate this midday on a Monday when reputable contractors or carpenters would be working. It really speaks volumes about who they are. They always seem to think they are experts on whatever topic comes up and will post why a certain situation would never happen to them. They like to think they have more control in life than they really do. You’re better off just blocking them and not dealing with them. Maybe when they don’t have an audience, they’ll eventually shut up.