Restoring the Deck On a Porch With Wrought Iron Columns and Railings

We continue to get porch repair work and we're happy to have it. The latest case is some rot that has overtaken an Italianate Style house on East Grace Street up in Church Hill. We are replacing the decking, the framing, and the lattice.... restored with historical accuracy of course!

Normally, with wood columns, we would jack up a porch roof in order to suspend it while we replace the decking, but with wrought iron columns that's not option so we built a bracing system.

Our Carpenters used two 2x8's to be the point where the jacks hold up the roof. 

We then end up with the issue that the entire porch would collapse if we simply jacked it up from the bottom, so we braced the structure to the North Side wall using 2x4s.

 

 Our Carpenter Ben, and Apprentice Chad are hard at work putting together the deck frame.

When completed, the clients will have a fantastic new deck to compliment the beautiful wrought iron railing and columns.

The new/old handrails and columns

Reinstalling these columns was a bit like a giant life-size jig saw puzzle. Using the original heart pine columns really adds something to the facade of the house.

Still in the shop, working on the Powers' porch elements

Nick manufacturing new bottom rail, using the router and a jig to rout out a triple bead to match original material. 

Mike used the spray gun to finish coating all of the finished elements. I heard a rumor these columns were scheduled to get tossed. I'm glad they didn't. They look so nice now.

End of the day in the shop. 

Column/baluster work progresses.

All of these balusters were rotten on the bottom. We milled and doweled new fir on the bottom, and repaired any cosmetic blemishes which would hold water with Abatron's Wood Epox. We left a lot of 'character' marks, though.

Each baluster is primed, taking care to fill the end grain with primer. This is where outdoor elements always fail; when they soak up moisture through their end grain.

The final sanding before we spray the first top coat. The second top coat will happen in the field after installation.

This doesn't look like much, but this is our super high tech dehumidifying tent. Under masonry blankets for insulation, 2 dehumidifiers with hoses to drain them and all of the wet historic material sit for days. When their relative moisture content has dropped below 12-15%, they're ready for epoxy and primer. I like to let chemical dipped material get very low, 10-12%, but wood that's just acclimated to Virginia's humidity, 15% is fine.

New details for an old porch

 The column bases were severely degraded; we built new bases out of Fir. I had some leftover PVC wainscoting from another job, which I attached to the bottom of the new base. This will allow the column to drain off the deck, and for water that hits the deck to slide out under the column. Below is the detail that you'll see from the yard. Win-win: we didn't dispose of a petroleum based product but repurposed it, and the column bases and the wood under them won't rot.

Restoring balusters

Mike and Syd rebuilt the base of half of the poor balusters. Some were poplar and some dense heart pine. The new bases are fir and are connected with dowels.

Porch restoration

A brand new roof for an old porch, built by Chris Koenig, master framer.

Happy New Year

I'm sorry there haven't been many posts, but the holidays slow things down, and Sofy and Syd went to Guatemala. There wasn't anyone willing to post, so while RBVa kept building, no one documented. I'll try to make up for lost time.

This is a porch in the Fan we're re-building. The rafters are fir, and our crew milled a small double bead in the bottom to match the original design. These rafters will be exposed.

Porch restoration

We rebuilt column capitals in record time today, and started framing the deck on this great two story porch. The crew kinda wishes we were doing this job in the summer so we could go swimming in our clients' awesome pool!

Porch repair

RBVa doing one of the things we do best: lifting a porch to work on the structure underneath it. I'm at the bottom of the tower, looking up two stories to where the shoring jack meets the structure, with our crew stationed in between. I'll have to post the view from this jobsite. Amazing location to work.

Building porches in the Fan

Replacing a bad deck and framing but leaving the antique handrails in place.

Handrail