Old House Handyman: Staying dry with this DIY

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 forest of northwestern Pennsylvania. We haven’t missed a year since we first took to the woods when we were juniors in high school.

Some years, we have been lucky enough to make the trip more than once. This is one of those years. These trips involve strenuous activities such as cutting firewood, re-roofing or renovating the cabin built in 1970 and riding our off-road motorcycles up and down the mountains on forest roads.

They also involve a certain amount of porch sitting punctuated by tall tales, tall drinks and occasional bad weather.

We sit on that wide porch, no matter what.

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And at least once a year for more than 25 years, our kids have joined us. And because two of them are teachers, they have decided that our annual trip with adult children should be in November, when we’re almost certain to have at least some type of weather that requires foul-weather gear — from raincoat to parka, depending on the whims of nature.

That’s a long way of saying that after 47 years of sitting on a wide porch with a rather skimpy roof, we’d had enough of sitting in the rain.

So a year ago, we came up with a very crude porch roof — a tarp that stretched from one end of the porch to the other and about 10 feet out to a few trees, where we lashed them as tightly as we could to maples and oaks.

It was not easy or ideal, but it kept the rain off of six people soaking up a limited view of pine-dotted mountains and the sounds of the tufted titmouse, cedar waxwing and magnolia warbler. I say “limited view” because as soon as rain started falling, the tarp sagged so low that we could mostly see only the orange and brown leaves blanketing the forest floor.

We were dry, but we figured we could do better. After another beverage, we came up with a plan to build an awning over the porch — a poor man’s version of the one I see advertised on TV that folds out from the side of a house to keep the blinding sun out of your eyes as you sip lemonade on your patio.

At first, I was thinking about the adult Tinker Toys of galvanized-steel water pipe, which screws together and has all sorts of pieces and parts to make angles and connections. But it’s heavy, and expensive. Still, I tried sketching out what we’d need, and I just couldn’t make it work — especially in an environment where we’re off the grid and using only hand tools.

We tried a modified version of our first tarp porch roof, using plastic plumbing pipe, but it was too flimsy.

So I started thinking about metal electrical conduit. It’s pipe that is thinner and lighter than old-fashioned water pipe, and I had seen connectors at hardware stores. Maybe we could make that work?

I walked the aisles of the hardware stores, and the connections I needed weren’t there. So I did a little sleuthing online — searching for awning materials — and came upon Maker Pipe. It’s a South Carolina company that makes all sorts of connectors that allow people to make whatever you can imagine by using electrical conduit and their connectors.

“Maker Pipe started with a husband and wife’s search for finding strong, convenient, and affordable ways to build furniture and other things for home use,” the company website posted, which also says they started the company in 2015.

“Having experience in manufacturing gave us the chance to be exposed to customization building systems but the material costs and sizes where not feasible for home use. So, we decided to make our own.

“Within the next six months, we quit our jobs and were off to developing Maker Pipe full time. We haven’t looked back since."

Our original design for an awning over the cabin porch deck involved electrical conduit and a $20, 14x19-foot tarp from Harbor Freight. The first stab at it — built on a sunny afternoon — was tested the following day when rain moved in and stuck around for the rest of the weekend.

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We realized we were missing a few parts, and as a result, we had a few sags in the tarp held in place with carabiners and bungee cords. So with another order of Maker Pipe parts, we’ll finish off the awning job this weekend, when it’s supposed to be dry all weekend.

But we’ll be ready for our November trip, when the weather can dish up anything from sunshine to snow.

Alan D. Miller is a former Dispatch editor who teaches journalism at Denison University and writes about old house repair and historic preservation based on personal experiences and questions from readers.

youroldhouse1@gmail.com

@youroldhouse

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Old House Handyman: Staying dry with this DIY