Dooer, I was talking about the current Deck Builder. The editorial is about cable rails, and there are 2 letters from cable rails manufacturers defending them. Niagra, Deck Builder is only available online, and it's free...at least it was. http://www.deckmagazine.com/abstract/19.html It's mostly ads (someone has to pay), and articles geared towards their advertiser's products...but I read it anyway. Thanks for the compliment. I'd like to sit on your deck, and see your pond and waterfall. It's been so hot here in Brooklyn this week...I'd like to sit under a waterfall. Are you in upstate NY? steve

We're in the North Bay (SF Bay Area), so I am incredibly disappointed that the much touted TWP is not an option. Do you do a wet-on-wet application of the Penofin? Ideally I'd love the finish to last a couple of years. Any way to keep the ipe looking great for that long?? I've since moved from the ipe posts to a black powder-coated aluminum, by Feeney (Design Rail). I was surprised by how pricey they are (isn't everything?), but I think it will be a clean, contemporary look. I was a little afraid that the wooden posts would render a bit more of a rustic feel than I ideally was hoping for. And, yes, we'll be doing an ipe cap. My neighbors stairs ARE protected from the sun. However, our deck is pretty much in full sun...alternating with full fog. So, Penofin... What color do you recommend? And, do you put it on immediately after installation or do you let the deck "weather" a bit? And other prep work after installation before staining?? Many, many thanks!!!!

I recently completed a DIY install of Hansen's Cable Railing system. This is a summary of my experience. I selected Hansen after a great deal of research. Although there are cheaper options, their prices seemed to be midpoint, and their quality promised to be excellent. There were good points and bad points to my experience with Hansen, that I will detail shortly, but in the end I would recommend their product if you have no stairs, and recommend another company's product if you have any stairs involved. My build involved a (roughly) 13' x 22' deck surrounded on 3 sides with 42" cable railing, plus a stairs with cable rail on both sides and a handrail, plus a short run of 5-steps stairs with cable on one side, plus 13' of cable around 2 sides of a patio. Altogether, Hansen charged 8800 for the rails, posts, cable, fittings, screws, etc... I recommend waiting until your deck is built before ordering the product, as having different dimensions or angles then given to Hansen can lead to serious issues. However, I actually ordered before my deck build and made sure that the deck adhered to plans. After they charge your card for a deposit, Hansen draws up plans which they send to you for approval. This provides a comprehensive pick list of materials and ensures that their butt is covered if there is a problem. There is about a 2-3 week lag between initial payment and plan approval and when they manufacture and ship. The product came delivered by freight in a pallet of posts, plus a VERY long skinny package with the rails. I needed two strong people to carry the long package, and fortunately the delivery person used a forklift to put the pallet in a good place. During the install, I found that they made 3 mistakes (leaving out 1 cable for each side of the stairs and messing up the size of one post) but were good about fixing the problems. I went with mostly fascia mounted posts to maximize deck space and also strength of post supports, with some in concrete. The brackets and posts feel very beefy and solid. I went with the powdercoated color, and for the most part the product paint was excellent. However there was one post with bubbles on the paint, and all of the stairs post caps had terrible paint jobs. Their system feels very well thought out, with some exceptions I will mention shortly, and clearly they have engineered it to pass code. The install went smoothly. The positives were: my sales representative, Doug Heizenrader, was very helpful in both the ordering process and install process, explaining design and intall options. Also, they provide almost all of the hardware you need, in one convenient package. I had to buy a tool for cutting cable (I went with a Dremel UltaMax saw because cutting stainless cable is super hard), for swaging cable (got the Lehigh swaging tool), and had to purchase concrete wedge anchors for the brackets that went into concrete. The install process is: mount the brackets (4 large lag screws per post) which sometimes requires adding some washers to straighten the post. Then put all the posts upside down in the brackets, use a laser level to mark a consistent distance above the highest point of the deck, and cut all the posts to length. Then put all the posts right side up, install railing, then screw in the posts to the brackets. They provide excellent Tek screws for much of these tasks, and the amount of predrilling needed is reasonable. As for the negative, I was shocked to find that the stairs posts were completely blank, I was expected to drill these myself. This involves making a template (I used a piece of laminate flooring) and positioning the template against the top rail to properly position the holes. Although this may not sound like a big imposition, it is very time consuming because there are say 11 holes on each side of each stairs post. Furthermore, I found out (the hard way) that the holes have to be drilled at an angle that mimics the eventual path of the cable, or it is difficult/impossible to thread the cable and the cable wont lie right and will excessively rub. So I actually had to drill every hole TWICE. Similarly, I found that Hansen did NOT drill the corner post holes (where the cable makes a 90 degree turn) at an angle, with the result being that I had to drill these with my hand drill. Requiring me to drill these holes is really bad, in my opinion, because the result with a hand drill is far inferior to what hansen could achive with their machining; and drilling aluminum is difficult to get high quality results as the metal mushrooms easily. Not to mention the significant amount of extra time and effort. There is NO good reason that Hansen should require us to do this part of the install; given accurate rise-run measurements on the stairs, any necessary adjustments can be made by altering the height of the post, which is a standard part of the install for non-stairs posts. When I queried Doug at Hansen about this, he basically admitted that they do it because sometimes customers give inaccurate rise-run measurements. This is a piss poor reason to require customers to drill and achieve a lower quality result in my opinion. Also, their instructions are incomplete when it comes to cutting the cable. Their instructions are "cut the cable 1/2" from the face of the post after pulling it taut". However, this will be disastrous if applied to stairs, where you actually need to cut the cable 1/2" PAST the face of the post due to the diagonal path thru the post and the larger washer. I managed to catch this, but they should really include such directions for everyone. Another potential problem is that their fascia mounted brackets put the post a good 1.5" away from the fascia, and the cables 2.5"; if your decking does not overhang the fascia, this gap is excessive and a sideways foot can easily slip off the deck. Another tricky thing for those of us who have never swaged before, is to realize that the swage closest to the threads should not be closer than a half inch from the threads, as the cable only extends a certain amount into the threaded terminal. In summary, I found their system well designed, the product high quality, and their execution excellent. HOWEVER, I DO NOT recommend their product if you have stairs or if you have alot of 90 degree posts, as they require you to do alot of unnecessary work that comes out below standard, and they do not properly document the cable cutting process for stairs.

FWIW I was told by online vendor that cost for materials including shipping is between $100 to $140 per lineal foot for 36" high cable rail system. This was borne out by their bid for my job which came in at about $125 for stainless steel; fascia/side mounted; 1/8" cable. And this included one 12' stair run and latter is typically more expensive than level deck runs. They also indicated to my ? that a 2 person crew typically can install 15 LF per hour.