Exterior decorative columns decaying
AaronRosenthal
| Posted in General Discussion on
One of my customers has 5 porch to roof columns like southern plantation houses. (We live in the deep south of British Columbia, Canada) The columns were imported from the ‘States 20 odd years ago and now (surprise) are rotted at the base.
The columns are 39″ in diameter with the decorative cove bases applied – and all rotten.
My customer would prefer not to replace the columns in toto. What are our options? Cutting them out at a pre-determined hight is one option, replacing them with buit-up sections.
Anyone care to help out?
Replies
How about the epoxy consolidator, Abatron I beleive it is. They often run an ad in FHB.
Ken Hill
I've used the Abatron products and they work pretty well but they are horrendously expensive. If you have a lot of large fills to do, it could end up being less expensive to have all new bases made. Abatron's big selling point for their epoxy is that it doesn't shrink like bondo does. I've been using bondo for over 15 years now on interior and exterior stuff and haven't seen any signs of shrinkage. I used bondo to repair a bunch of turned column bases that had been eaten by a wild animal about 10 years ago. We went back to this house last year to do a major remodel and I could not distinguish which bases I had repaired. The repair was done by making a sheet metal template to create the profile. The heavy fills were done with the bondo with fiberglass strands blended in the mix. (gorilla hair)
In your case, you have rot which can affect the ability of the epoxy to bond. The Abatron liquid consolidator mentioned above is a great product to use to solidify the remaining salvagable parts of the bases. This is going to come down to a cost issue of repair or replacement of the entire base. It just depends on the severity of the repair.
Good advice.
There's another point to pay attention to here. Most rot in wood columns, especially ones this young, comes from faulty installation. These columns are almost always made of glued staves and then turned and detailed. Thus, they are hollow inside. When water gets in to them, how does it get out?
They always need to be installed with flow through ventilation from bottom to top. There are lots of ways to do this, depending on what you have and it is a good idea to put screening on the vent opennings to prevent bees from moving in.
Since rot in cases like this happens from the inside out, it can be worse than it appears.
Excellence is its own reward!
Piffin-
Yes. Always the question "where does the water go?". Good point about venting the columns. Seems also a good idea to hold base up esp. on concrete.
Ken Hill
I've just been reading your great advice - I agree, the installation was lousy - but the problem here is that the rot extends up between 10" and 5', depending on the column. These are the turned stave systems, so I expect I will have to amke a template and get out the old chain saw.
It's become a problem because it turned out he is an old gym buddy of mine - and even though he's a dentist, even I cringe at the cost this will be.
Thanks for all the help.
Aaron
Expense of epoxy consolidation? How about the expense of 39" diameter columns? There is no comparison. Aaron, you might wan to click here and read this. We've used this product successfully on 24"-30" diameter columns. I suspect you'll have a combination of dutchman and epoxy repairs. Make sure you have a moisture meter, too. T. Jeffery Clarke
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