Best Of
Re: Home Ownership And You!
Sooo....haven't posted to this in a while. Not because I didn't have anything done or anything, just a lack of time and inclination. Writing this stuff out takes time!
I have lots of stuff to talk about since March of 2023 like replacing roofs (yes plural) and the Captain Halfassery that was present during that adventure. A few trees fell down again. Built some bookshelves for one of the kids. Also had to replace the water filter/softener system, the pool liner replacement, the pool deck sinking (not fixed yet), electrical line tracing through the property, the propane BBQ grill literally blew up (actually set my hair on fire) and a bunch of other stupid little repairs everywhere that have been more of a nuisance than an issue.
But, no, today I am writing about an epic adventure that has been several years in the making but was waiting for when I could actually get the roof replaced.
Today's story is how I replaced the porch columns on the porch.
Porch columns? Really? That's all?!?! Those are EASY! What kind of a loser can't....
Hold on there, honcho, you're about to find out!
When we moved in, the porch posts were shabby and looked like they had some bad repairs done to fix rot. They seemed solid though. So I marked that as a project to do later instead of right now. Fast forward 5 years and we fixed the biggest issue with the house which was improperly enclosed porch (see last posts) and then I decided that the next big project was the roof. That included the porch posts. The roof over the porch was leaking significantly at this point too and the rest of the roof was showing significant signs of problems. But I'm not talking about that adventure today.
So, the porch roof, should be simple, right? Typically just a header plate on the side of the house with beams and joists attached to create a roof and it's held up at the outer edge by some posts that the beams sit on top of and get toe nailed in or use structural plates to locate and stop lateral movement too. Easy peasy, right?
Yeah, no.
So MY porch roof is a massive, wrap around porch. The house itself was about 1500 square feet of roof and the porch alone added another 800 square feet. It's huge and it's held up by 11 columns at about 10 foot intervals. It's also steeply pitched so there's lateral forces too, not just load bearing forces.
These pictures are at night with the Christmas lights on it but the lights really show how the columns are oriented and with the roof covered in snow, you can see exactly how big it actually is.
That entire porch was held up by columns like this:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Turncraft-96-in-x-8-ft-Primed-Pine-Square-Column/3099719
They were hollow and made up of chunks of wood finger jointed together to make the necessary lengths and then turned down in the factory to make the decorative scrolling. For something like a portico or a narrow porch roof they are fine. Just keep them dry. For the massive monstrosity of a porch roof I have....no.
That wasn't the worst problem, though. See, Captain Halfass...when he built the roof in the early 2000's, he put this brown shingle on that likely matched the original house roof color. When he replaced the entire house roof in, like, 2007, he didn't pull up the old roof. He laid the new roof down over the old roof. Naturally, this caused a massive water problem. Leaks everywhere and since there was space between the shingle layers, water migrated everywhere. So every rain storm, there were leaks on the porch and they would dribble down rafters and into the soffits. Additionally, there's tons of woodpecker damage 'cause they were going after the carpenter bees that were damaging the posts as well.
I have lots of stuff to talk about since March of 2023 like replacing roofs (yes plural) and the Captain Halfassery that was present during that adventure. A few trees fell down again. Built some bookshelves for one of the kids. Also had to replace the water filter/softener system, the pool liner replacement, the pool deck sinking (not fixed yet), electrical line tracing through the property, the propane BBQ grill literally blew up (actually set my hair on fire) and a bunch of other stupid little repairs everywhere that have been more of a nuisance than an issue.
But, no, today I am writing about an epic adventure that has been several years in the making but was waiting for when I could actually get the roof replaced.
Today's story is how I replaced the porch columns on the porch.
Porch columns? Really? That's all?!?! Those are EASY! What kind of a loser can't....
Hold on there, honcho, you're about to find out!
When we moved in, the porch posts were shabby and looked like they had some bad repairs done to fix rot. They seemed solid though. So I marked that as a project to do later instead of right now. Fast forward 5 years and we fixed the biggest issue with the house which was improperly enclosed porch (see last posts) and then I decided that the next big project was the roof. That included the porch posts. The roof over the porch was leaking significantly at this point too and the rest of the roof was showing significant signs of problems. But I'm not talking about that adventure today.
So, the porch roof, should be simple, right? Typically just a header plate on the side of the house with beams and joists attached to create a roof and it's held up at the outer edge by some posts that the beams sit on top of and get toe nailed in or use structural plates to locate and stop lateral movement too. Easy peasy, right?
Yeah, no.
So MY porch roof is a massive, wrap around porch. The house itself was about 1500 square feet of roof and the porch alone added another 800 square feet. It's huge and it's held up by 11 columns at about 10 foot intervals. It's also steeply pitched so there's lateral forces too, not just load bearing forces.
These pictures are at night with the Christmas lights on it but the lights really show how the columns are oriented and with the roof covered in snow, you can see exactly how big it actually is.
That entire porch was held up by columns like this:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Turncraft-96-in-x-8-ft-Primed-Pine-Square-Column/3099719
They were hollow and made up of chunks of wood finger jointed together to make the necessary lengths and then turned down in the factory to make the decorative scrolling. For something like a portico or a narrow porch roof they are fine. Just keep them dry. For the massive monstrosity of a porch roof I have....no.
That wasn't the worst problem, though. See, Captain Halfass...when he built the roof in the early 2000's, he put this brown shingle on that likely matched the original house roof color. When he replaced the entire house roof in, like, 2007, he didn't pull up the old roof. He laid the new roof down over the old roof. Naturally, this caused a massive water problem. Leaks everywhere and since there was space between the shingle layers, water migrated everywhere. So every rain storm, there were leaks on the porch and they would dribble down rafters and into the soffits. Additionally, there's tons of woodpecker damage 'cause they were going after the carpenter bees that were damaging the posts as well.
Jstas
1 ·
Re: Post a picture.....any picture...part deux...
If it can still move under its own propulsion in that condition, it just might be the world’s toughest automobile ever.
That would actually be the Toyota Hilux that Top Gear attempted to destroy, several times before success.
https://topgear.fandom.com/wiki/The_Indestructible_Hilux
I had one of those. The engine grenaded somewhere around 200,000 miles.
Mine was the SR5 extra cab version with all the fixings. I added real off road tires. It was under powered and scary off road.
F1nut
2 ·
Re: Streamer
I have yet to hear a difference in a streamer combined with a quality linear power supply
Now... Streamer with switch mode versus linear? Night and day!
My prior lumin u1 with x1 power supply was replaced with the mini dsp sdh studio and a quality power supply, absolutely no loss of fidelity
Now... Streamer with switch mode versus linear? Night and day!
My prior lumin u1 with x1 power supply was replaced with the mini dsp sdh studio and a quality power supply, absolutely no loss of fidelity
VR3
1 ·