How To Repair Wooden Porch Columns

Round Woods Cavalcade Repair / Replacement for Porches
Porch Column Restore or Supplant: Assessment of a Porch Repair Immovability Over 30 Years

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Wood cavalcade installation, troubleshooting repairs: how to repair or supersede a porch column.

This commodity describes the inspection, repair, or installation of both round and foursquare wood columns ofttimes used on porches and sometimes used in building interiors.

Columns that split, lean, bend, sag or rot are often more than than a cosmetic problem: frequently the cavalcade is also serving to support a porch roof or other building features. Nosotros draw the procedure for repairing porch columns and we examine the condition of the repaired and replaced porch columns at the time of original work and once more at the same porch thirty years subsequently in 2022.

Nosotros also provide an Article INDEX for this topic, or you lot can try the page top or bottom SEARCH BOX as a quick way to discover information you need.

Wood Porch Columns: causes of damage, methods of repair or replacement

Causes of Damage to Round Woods Porch Columns

Wooden columns accept been used on buildings for centuries; the Poughkeepsie home at 57 South Grand Avenue, shown at left and whose renovation nosotros began in 1985 and whose renovation will be finished when all of the home's owners take died, included repairs to a porch whose roof, columns, floor, and flooring structure had been rotted by decades of neglect and of course leaks.

That's Laura Waterman and Katie the Certified Environmental Inspector dog on the front porch of this domicile earlier repairs were begun in 1985. In 2022 the domicile stood empty and in need of repairs again.

Here we describe repairs to classical Doric fashion hollow lock stave wooden porch columns. We draw the original repair work and then we examine the immovability of that work xxx years subsequently. This habitation, originally synthetic in 1900, enjoyed a front porch across the width of the building. At that place from 1900 through the 1940'due south it was common for Poughkeepsie-ites to relax on the porch in the evening while an occasional car passed up or down Thou Avenue.

Past the 1970'south the dwelling had been covered by aluminum siding, suspended ceilings had been installed inside, and as part of an all-encompassing renovation, the front porch columns, rotted and split, needed repair or replacement.

Actually a trivial rot on a round hollow wood mail is non the worst trouble one encounters. More serious harm to porch columns includes crushing column bases or plinth blocks, damage by rot, termites, or carpenter ants that, when combined with the sloping porch flooring and perhaps with a sagging porch structure, places an un-even load on the column from front to dorsum or side to side causing columns to split, lean, or even collapse. .

Choosing Replacement Porch Column Shapes & Profiles: Entasis is important

Because almost round forest columns and certainly all of the larger sized columns were used on such homes are hollow they were built using techniques similar to barrel-making and in fact I call them hollow stave columns. Strips of wood with modest tongue and groove sides are glued together to form the column.

And so the cavalcade is given entasis - illustrated by my sketch below. Entasis is a colulmn shape or profile formed by a convex bend designed to provide a pleasing class that was originally figured out past the Greeks and shown on classical columns. You'll encounter that entasis is tricky: it'south not a symmetric bend.

Yet when viewed from a distance the columns look straight. Entasis was used in the Egyptian pyramids just is most associated with the columns found in the Classical Catamenia in Greece. In Red china entasis was discussed later, in 1103 by Yingzao Fashi. [Wikipedia at REFERENCES]

[Click to enlarge any prototype]

If you actually build a column without entasis, equally were the ugly aluminum columns we considered as replacements, the column looks weird when in identify - excessively tapered from bottom to top. Kudos to Greece.

Of three most cavalcade top or capital designs, Corinthian, Doric, or Ionic, the simplest and smoothest is the Doric cavalcade design, shown here. Smooth-surfaced Doric columns are the design nearly commonly found on wood porch columns.

Repair or Replacement Procedures for Rotted, Split, or Damaged Porch Columns

Anyway, a hollow stave column, when exposed to uneven loads past the weight of the roof pressing downwards on a column that rests on a rotting or improperly shaped plinth block (base) wants to split. Then cavalcade repairs will include both gluing back the dissever column staves and cutting/replacing rotted sections. For a wood column that is smashed across repair, don't despair.

The split shown in the hollow wood column at above correct can exist repaired merely I do not recommend only injecting epoxy into the open joints: you lot're making the column diameter ever wider and asking for more than damage in the future.

A proper repair involves removing the column, opening the joints a chip further and blowing them clean and dry. Then gum is inserted and strap clamps are used to re-clench the column to its original dimensions.

At higher up left you lot tin can run into that damage to porch columns and often the porch flooring usually begins at the porch roof or soffit and box beam that bears on the cavalcade tops. Leaky porch roof built-in gutters ship water into the box beam and porch soffit where it rots those components as well as leaking into the columns below.

See EAVES TROUGH, INTEGRAL GUTTERS for details of how this porch and its eaves trough gutters were repaired.

What Happens When You Wrap a Home in Aluminum?

Higher up you lot tin can see at higher up left the water stains on the soffit and the box beam supporting the porch roof besides as at the top of our round stave wood porch column. Mrs. Perkins, the housekeeper for Mr. Perkins until his wife died, became Mrs. Perkins #ii and lived in this home for ensuing decades.

In the 1960's Mrs. Perkins #2 accepted a contractor's offer to cover the entire outside of the dwelling house in aluminum: aluminum siding and aluminum wrap covered all of the habitation's trim from superlative to bottom.

Wrapping a dwelling house in "no maintenance" aluminum was appealing to Mrs. Perkins who was facing a costly home paint job, but if the trim and siding are non properly installed to keep h2o out of the surfaces they embrace (or to let it out if it enters), the result spells trouble for later owners such as Laura and Katie. For example, at the home's forepart porch the aluminum wrapped around the box beam supporting the front end porch acted as a gutter to trap leaks from to a higher place around the axle causing both axle rot and porch column rot.

Have a await at the column top (above right) and notice those dark vertical lines: the column staves were coming un-glued. In wider column segments and peculiarly near the cavalcade base where water accumulated inside the hollow cavalcade these staves divide completely.

At higher up right you lot can meet the deterioration of the roof cornice trim, soffit and box beam exposed later on we finished removing the aluminum wrapper.

In a higher place and below are photographs of the rotted and carpenter-ant damaged forest column base of operations.

At above right you can see my temporary back up jammed under the porch column but more important discover that the column is badly split. Someone had attempted to "repair" the porch column by attaching a metallic band effectually its base.

Water running in the cavalcade interior soaked the column base of operations and plinth block, rotted those components, and rotted the porch floor and supporting axle beneath. The corners of the porch floor structure were supported past hollow brick columns.

H2o running inside those columns were an engraved invitation to carpenter ants who had moved into the columns too, adding to the excitement.

The brick columns (piers if y'all adopt) supporting the porch were falling apart and needed to be re-built from footings up (above left, 1985). I re-used the original bricks simply modern mortar.

At the column meridian, not wanting the carpenter ants to accept an easy access into the porch structure again, I installed a solid, custom-made copper cavalcade top shown in the photo above. You'll as well notation that the porch floor repair lumber used treated wood. This was later covered with a fascia trim board for better corrective appearance.

At to a higher place is i of the same rebuilt brick supporting piers in 2022, iii decades later: however intact thanks to that copper cap flashing just visible under the bluish trim boards around the porch floor frame.

Watch out: there is no prophylactic way to remove badly damaged porch columns like these without starting time amalgam very secure independent supports for the porch roof - unless you're going to tear off the whole roof construction first. In this case the porch roof structure was salvageable: we just needed to rebuild the eaves trough gutters, soffits, and box axle below.

So we supported the roof to permit removal of the damaged porch columns at the left and right porch corners.

To a higher place you tin run across how we supported this end of the porch roof so that the corner column could be removed for repair or replacement. At this bespeak we've also begun repairs of the porch roof gutters and trim. We but used a telepost (aka "jackpost" that is a telescoping column with a large screw in ane end) to jack the roof just enough to permt removal of the old column.

Spotter out: Bracing and cross-bracing are critial for safety when jacking a porch or removing columns.

Venting Suggestions for Hollow Lock Stave Woods Columns

While repairing the salvageable and replacing the worst wood columns on a Poughkeepsie New York home built in 1900 it made sense to pay special attending to flashing at post tops to prevent water entry from above, venting the hollow column interior to reduce rot and carpenter ant attacks, and to provide a sound and properly ready cavalcade base or plinth block, adapted to the slope of the porch.

To vent the column I built a custom plinth block of solid treated lumber and cut arches at the sides of the cake parallel to the wood grain so as to avert splitting.

I set the columns with base vent openings to the left and right sides of the column so that they'd non exist obvious from the street, and I bore my column top vent hole near the column top merely on the porch interior side, again for corrective reasons. My original sketch below shows where these vent openings were placed.

At in a higher place in my original sketch and below photographed in 2022, thirty years subsequently this renovation, you can see the vent opening at the top of the round hollow wood column.

Back in 1985, later on I got sick of repairing the porch roof and gutters (below) it was fourth dimension to either ready or supplant the porch columns whose absence was disturbing everyone else.

We removed the scary angled temporary supports and installed temporary wood posts nigh the porch corners but leaving enough room to install the replacement circular woods columns when they arrived.

Above we see that the same home in 2022 needs repairs and maintenance but I was pleased to encounter that my copper-lined eaves trough gutters had protected the box beam and soffits from h2o damage for three decades.

Above are images of the replacement corner posts that we brought upward from the American Wood Column Corporation in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1985. We matched our original columns that themselves may have come up from this company or its predecessor, depending on when the original porch was synthetic. American Wood Column Corp. has been in business since 1918.

At to a higher place right you'll see the deterioration that can appear later 30 years of atmospheric condition exposure with no maintenance. No one painted these posts after our original installation and paint job back in 1985. This lock-stave hollow wood column is repairable: water has not been running in its interior and I saw no rot on the column any.

The center columns at this porch were in better shape and could be re-glued, repaired, and re-used. The corner columns, on inspection, were, well, depressing. Nosotros drove down to 1000 Street in Brooklyn, New York to purchase almost perfectly-matching replacements for two of our Doric columns that were beyond repair.

The manufacturer glues upwardly the wood stave column and then puts information technology on a gigantic lathe to cut the cavalcade to a profile with perfect entasis.

The repaired porch received the new columns at its corners. At to a higher place right is the same home photographed in August, 2022. The property is for sale and needs at least a roof and exterior painting, simply its Doric columned forepart porch is nevertheless standing. In the ensuing 30 years non one soul has seemed to notice that they are not an exact match for their center- sisters.

Above left: in 2022 it'southward time to supercede those plinth blocks and some of the column bases, and other column repairs are past due.

I'd recommend using a pre-formed fiberglass column plinth block to put an finish to rot worries and to improve the intake venting at each cavalcade base.

Above is the front porch at 57 S. Grand Avenue in Poughkeepsie in August 2022.

Replacement Lock Stave Forest Cavalcade Sources & Porch Repair Guides

• American Wood Column Corp., 913 Grand St., Brooklyn, NY 11211, Tel: 718-782-3163 Electronic mail: tpl913@verizon.internet, Website: http://americanwoodcolumncorp.com/ - this company was the source of the replacement lock stave wood columns described in the article above.
• Architectural Mall, Tel: 877-279-9993, Website: http://world wide web.columnsandbalustrades.com/, provides porch columns made of fiberglass, polymer rock, fiber reinforced polymer, PVC wrapped columns, Forest-stain grade columns (interior use), aluminum (extruded, uniform bore), and polyuethane columns. From the website this visitor'southward physical address appears to be a secret.
• Pacific Columns, Inc., 505 Westward. Lambert Rd Brea, CA 92821, Tel: 800-294-1098, Architectural columns. Annoying talking website.
• Turntech, LLC, 114 Cocalico Creek Rd, Ephrata, PA 17522, Tel: 717.859.5944, Email: info@customturnings.com, Website: http://customturnings.com/ Custom Wood Columns and other products

• Amend Homes and Gardens (Eds.), "The Porch Book [at Amazon.com] (Amend Homes and Gardens) (Better Homes and Gardens Home)", Better Homes and Gardens (2011), ISBN-10: 0470948523, ISBN-13: 978-0470948521
  Features before-and-after photos that inspire you to give your habitation'due south outside a facelift, Covers amenities that make porches more bonny, like lighting and fans, kitchen areas, decorative ceiling and wall treatments, flooring options, and much more, Offers pattern construction topics, like using an architect, allow issues, adding entryways, and more
• Fine Homebuilding (Eds.), "Building Porches and Decks (For Pros past Pros)", [at Amazon.com] Taunton Press (2003),
  The For Pros By Pros titles are compilations of manufactures from Fine Homebuilding magazine, selected by the editors of the mag and organized by subject. New manufactures from contempo bug of the mag accept been added to this edition of Building Porches and Decks. Updated and redesigned throughout, this book gives builders the very best and electric current information.
• German, Roger, "Porches and Sunrooms: Planning and Remodeling", [at Amazon.com]
• Hor, "Decks, Porches, and Patios (Abode Repair and Improvement, Updated Series), [at Amazon.com]
• Schmidt, Phil, "Black & Decker: The Complete Guide to Porches & Patio Rooms", [at Amazon.com]

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How To Repair Wooden Porch Columns,

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