Shorty after opening the cottage on the May long weekend I noticed a beam supporting the deck on the lower north side had some very bad rot and was collapsing! Also, some of the posts supporting this beam were in pretty rough shape too! Part 1.
The high level plan was to support the deck with a temporary beam and posts, parallel to the beam to be replaced. Jack up the deck freeing the old beam, remove and replace the beam, replace the rotten posts, and add a net new post at the corner.
One might wonder why there was never a post at the front left corner? I know I did but, I was not around when the whole deck system was installed some 40 years ago. My best guess as to why this was never tackled is that there are several vertical rocks right where the pad for the post would need to go, large basically immovable rocks sticking straight up like a triangle. Think faced with this difficulty and the desire to get it done quickly my Dad and his crew of buddies opted to put posters as close to the corner as possible and cantilever the beam out over thin air! Hey, it worked for 40 years.
As both the beams that connect at this corner are 2 – 2×10 – 16’ boards sistered together I thought they deserved a post of their own at the corner and I had the time. So, first task is to pour a concrete pad over this little pinnacle of rocks and form a flat surface. As much dirt and loose rock as possible was removed from the area, then some pressure washing and then a sono tube is customized to fit over the rocks. See Part 1 for the details.
With the temporary beam in place supported by three posts with jacks I’m ready to begin the “lift”. Winding up each jack a bit in turn the deck is raised and the old beam is free of the posts and suspended to the deck by some toe nailing. At this point the three old posts are removed. Once again loops from above are put in to “catch” the old beam when I cut it loose.
I use the sawzall to cut the nails that are now the only thing holding the beam to the deck and down she comes. It’s very heavy BEA cause of all the water rot so it gets cut in half to manage the weight. It’s going to be scrap or firewood anyway.
The new beam is fabricated, carried down from the driveway and suspended in place by loops from the deck above.
The new beam is jacked into place and the new concrete pads are positioned and levelled. With that done the posts are measured and cut to the right high. To get them in place the deck is jacked a bit higher until the new post clear the beam. After positioning the new post the deck is lowered. Each post is then braced and the process is repeated for the other two new posts.
To get the new beam in place I had to push it into the existing bracket on the front of the cottage beam.
This involved some fancy lifting into the bracket and then sledge hammering the other end to push it in and allow the new beam to fit on the post end to end with an existing beam that runs to the back of the cottage.
Two out of three, one more to go, tomorrow.
The last and tallest post is put into place and braced.
Once the final post is installed the temporary jacks, posts and pads are removed and the temporary beam us unfastened and lowered to be used for something else another day. The work site is cleaned up of all the cutoffs and bits and pieces to complete the job which spanned many weeks.
This is the third post and beam adventure I’ve performed on the cottage. The first was the post on western end of the deck beam on the same side as was just done.
The second post replacement was a little more exciting as it involved lifting the northwest corner of the cottage itself up! This was required to replace a cracking and shifting concrete pad with a poured concrete pad that was anchored with rebar into the rock. A little nerve wracking but successful.
