Home repair structural question

The #1 community for Gun Owners in Indiana

Member Benefits:

  • Fewer Ads!
  • Discuss all aspects of firearm ownership
  • Discuss anti-gun legislation
  • Buy, sell, and trade in the classified section
  • Chat with Local gun shops, ranges, trainers & other businesses
  • Discover free outdoor shooting areas
  • View up to date on firearm-related events
  • Share photos & video with other members
  • ...and so much more!
  • fordmanchris

    Marksman
    Rating - 100%
    5   0   0
    Oct 19, 2008
    274
    18
    Westfield
    Sorry in advance for the long post... My wife and I bought our first house last year and have come across a ton of previous homeowner diy repairs and mess ups. I am slowly going through and fixing things as I find them.
    The most recent and so far biggest thing I have come across has me stumped. I will try to explain the best I can.. We have a sunroom on the back of our house that I assume was once a screened in porch or maybe just a covered porch. You walk out and there's a paver patio that is pretty uneven. When it rains i noticed that the water was starting to pool against the sunroom that the pavers butted up against. I noticed that the siding on the sunroom ran really low to the ground and the pavers were pretty much up against it.
    So, here's where it gets interesting. I thought it looked kind of strange how the siding was covered all the way around. I pulled it up and apparently the support post for the entire sunroom are sunk into the ground in concrete like a fence post would be. Now inside the sunroom is a concrete slab that is tiled but apparently around the big slab they poured the footers on the outside of it and put the 4x4 post into it in direct contact with dirt..
    Well you guessed it.. they are rotted. I can't tell how many yet because it has river rock around it pretty deep like a makeshift french drain, but the couple I can get to, the wood is rotted and spongy. There's 15 post around the whole thing and it supports a roof over it.
    What is the best way to go about fixing this? I know know if I poured new footers and put in the metal brackets to hold the post they have to be pretty deep,but if I dig the old ones out then does that point start below undisturbed soil? If I chop off the post obviously supporting the roof and pour cement and add a bracket into the existing footer is there any easy way to get the rotted wood out first? Any better options? I'm basically working alone on this and on a budget so I really don't think I could afford to pay someone. I'm prepared for it to be a ton of work and to have to pretty much strip the "sunroom" down to the bare bones to do this just want it easy as possible. I have time I assume since it's not pulling away from the house not anything I have noticed, but I'm the type of person it will bug the **** out of me knowing something is wrong.
     

    fordmanchris

    Marksman
    Rating - 100%
    5   0   0
    Oct 19, 2008
    274
    18
    Westfield
    I'm not really sure. I know a little about this kind of stuff but not a lot as far as load bearing and stuff like that. I assume they didn't build it on the porch slab that was there because maybe it wasn't thick enough to hold the weight, but I'm not sure. I had the thought that maybe I could add onto the existing slab with thicker poured concrete under where the supports are and somehow support the roof and cut off the posts and frame it with 2x4s running under all the posts and bolt it down to the slab, but I'm not sure that can be done either as far as addiing on the concrete. I appreciate the idea though and it's something else for me to look into!
     
    Top Bottom