Alan D. Miller
For the past 47 years, my friend Dan and I have spent at least one weekend a year at his family’s cabin in the woods of northwestern Pennsylvania. We haven’t had a year off since we first went to the forest when we were seniors in high school.
Some years we’ve been lucky enough to be able to travel more than once. This year is one of those years. These trips include strenuous activities such as cutting firewood, re-roofing and renovating a 1970 cabin, and riding off-road bikes up and down the mountains on forest roads.
It also involves a certain amount of sitting on the porch, punctuated by long stories, strong drinks, and the occasional bad weather.
We sit on that wide porch no matter what.
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And for over 25 years, our children have attended at least once a year. And since two of them are teachers, they decided their annual trip with their adult children should be in November. At that time of year, you’re almost guaranteed to experience weather that will require at least some form of inclement weather gear, depending on the situation, from raincoats to parkas. At the whim of nature.
This is a far cry from saying I’m tired of sitting in the rain after 47 years of sitting on a large porch with a fairly exposed roof.
So a year ago we came up with a very poor porch roof. The tarp stretched about 10 feet from one end of the porch to several trees, where we tied it as tightly as we could to the maple and trees. Oaks.
It wasn’t easy or ideal, but six of us were able to escape the rain with limited views of pine-dotted mountains and the sounds of tufted tits, cedar waxwings, and magnolia warblers. I say “limited visibility” because as soon as it started raining, the tarp hung so low that I could pretty much only see the orange and brown leaves covering the forest floor.
We were dry, but I thought we could do more. After another drink, we came up with a plan to build an awning over the porch. It’s the poor man’s version of the awning advertised on TV, which folds up from the side of the house to keep the bright sun out of your eyes. Drink lemonade on the patio.
At first I was thinking of a tinker toy of galvanized steel water pipes for adults. It is held together with screws and comes with all kinds of pieces and parts to make angles and connections. But it’s heavy and expensive. Still, I tried sketching out what I wanted, but I couldn’t get it to work, especially in an environment where I’m off the grid and using only manual tools.
We tried a modified version of our first tarp porch roof and used plastic plumbing pipe, but it was too flimsy.
So I started thinking about metal conduit. It’s a thinner and lighter pipe than traditional water pipes, and I’ve seen connectors at hardware stores. Maybe we can make it happen?
I walked down the aisles of the hardware store and couldn’t find the connection I needed. So I did a little research on the internet for awning materials and found Maker Pipe. This is a South Carolina company that makes all kinds of connectors that allow people to make anything they can imagine using electrical conduit and their connectors.
“Maker Pipe began with a couple’s quest to find a durable, convenient, and affordable way to make furniture and other things for the home,” the company’s website states, and was launched in 2015. It is also written that the company was established in 2007.
“My background in manufacturing gave me the opportunity to customize building systems, but the materials and size were not practical for home use.So we decided to make our own. did.
“Within the next six months, we quit our jobs and started working on Maker Pipe full-time, and we haven’t looked back since.”
Our original design for the awning over the cabin porch deck included electrical conduit and a $20 14×19 foot tarp from Harbor Freight. The first attempt, built on a sunny afternoon, was tested the next day when it started raining and continued to rain for the rest of the weekend.
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I noticed some parts were missing, resulting in some sag in the tarp, which was held in place with carabiners and bungee cords. So I’m planning on ordering the Maker Pipe parts again and finishing the awning job this weekend. It should stay dry all weekend.
But I’m fully prepared for my trip in November. Weather varies from sunny to snowy.
Alan D. Miller is a former Dispatch editor who teaches journalism at Denison University and writes about old home restoration and historic preservation based on personal experience and questions from readers.
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