I have read everything I can find on this topic and it all seems to be quite a number of years old. Things change and new materials develop so any responses are appreciated.
Here are my questions:
Recommendations on porch flooring material for a 1920’s Craftsman style house.
What kind of wood to make the new column bases out of.
What is best practice for the connection between floor and column. Wood to wood spells rot again at some point.
The detail:
I moved into a 1920’s Craftsman style house with a huge wrap around porch. The house had been vacant for a number of years and is pretty bad shape. My wife fell in love with it and so now I am trying to restore/modernize it while keeping all my regular clients happy.
The porch needs major work all of which is not big deal for me. The one thing I can’t seem to find any current recommendations on is the connection between a wood floor and wood columns.
The porch has tapered structural wood columns that none of my suppliers say they can come close to matching. Based on that, and the fact that my wife really likes their style I need to restore them. They need some repair at the bottom. I plan to jack the roof up, brace it and then take them out one at a time. In the shop I can cut the base off square and put a new base under them that is the same pattern.
The columns might have been built locally or even on site. They are load bearing with no internal support like a pipe or post. They sit directly on the original T&G floor. The connection between the colum and floor has held moisture and casued both to rot out. I expect that some of the framing will also have damage.
While each column is out I need to replace the porch floor and deal with framing as needed. I have considered composit flooring but everything I read about load and compression concern me. I would rather not have to do lots of engineering to get wood floor under the colum and then composit around it. I can do the exotic lumber route but it really will not look right. I can also do T& G again or pressure treated.
Thanks for the input.
Replies
For the base itself, use some of the new plastic lumber (but keep in mind that it's not real stiff). Try to minimize the contact area between the plastic base and the flooring so as to minimize water capture between. Maybe drill holes or whatever to let air through. You might consider making an area in the floor about 1" smaller than the base all around (so the base will hide it) that is plastic lumber or even a steel plate (rust protected somehow), bearing directly on beefed-up framing.