woody99
Member
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2008
- Messages
- 9
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I have an old house in Northern California. Recently, because of deterioration of the front porch, my wife and I embarked on the project of tearing down, and rebuilding the porch. This is not the first of this type of project we have tackled, and we felt it was well within our "comfort zone"
The old porch (circa 1930's) was built directly on the ground , and was not in good shape. we demo'ed the porch, and hauled the debris to the dump. After removing the old ledger board, we discovered quite a bit of very old termite damage. (pictures enclosed).
I had a local termite service come out and look it over, and he agreed that it was old damage, and that it had been treated with something (can't remember the name he used) he can't even use anymore.
The termite guy gave me the name of a contractor he used and I had this guy come buy to look at the job and see what needed to be done....
He was talking about replacing the entire 4x6 (which is actually a 4" x 6" beam) along with another that goes back under the house, from the damage under the front door. The beam that goes back is bad for about 6-8 feet, then is solid.
My question is this. Several people I have spoken with, who have expertise in construction, and home building, thought that the damage was not that sever, and since the house has been fine for many years with the damage, tht just cutting out and replacing the damage would suffice. The Termite contractor, wanted to replace both of these beams at a cost of about $10-12K. This seemed to be a bit much for me, but I'm a retired Computer consultant, so what do I know...
We have scheduled a full termit inspection, and treatement for next week, but want to get the porch back togeather befor the rains come
The first picture is just a shot of the mortise & tenon construction, which I thought was very cool...
The second picture is of the damage under the front door. This was also a mortise and tenon joint, but those little termite guys, just followed the tenon, back under the house
The third picture is a closer shot of the damage under the front door
The forth picture is of a similar tenon joint to the right of the front door. This one appears to be easy to fix as the beam on the other side is sound, and I'm going to put a joist hanger, and a pier and post under it.
The last picture is sort of a "big picture" of the area of concern
The old porch (circa 1930's) was built directly on the ground , and was not in good shape. we demo'ed the porch, and hauled the debris to the dump. After removing the old ledger board, we discovered quite a bit of very old termite damage. (pictures enclosed).
I had a local termite service come out and look it over, and he agreed that it was old damage, and that it had been treated with something (can't remember the name he used) he can't even use anymore.
The termite guy gave me the name of a contractor he used and I had this guy come buy to look at the job and see what needed to be done....
He was talking about replacing the entire 4x6 (which is actually a 4" x 6" beam) along with another that goes back under the house, from the damage under the front door. The beam that goes back is bad for about 6-8 feet, then is solid.
My question is this. Several people I have spoken with, who have expertise in construction, and home building, thought that the damage was not that sever, and since the house has been fine for many years with the damage, tht just cutting out and replacing the damage would suffice. The Termite contractor, wanted to replace both of these beams at a cost of about $10-12K. This seemed to be a bit much for me, but I'm a retired Computer consultant, so what do I know...
We have scheduled a full termit inspection, and treatement for next week, but want to get the porch back togeather befor the rains come
The first picture is just a shot of the mortise & tenon construction, which I thought was very cool...
The second picture is of the damage under the front door. This was also a mortise and tenon joint, but those little termite guys, just followed the tenon, back under the house
The third picture is a closer shot of the damage under the front door
The forth picture is of a similar tenon joint to the right of the front door. This one appears to be easy to fix as the beam on the other side is sound, and I'm going to put a joist hanger, and a pier and post under it.
The last picture is sort of a "big picture" of the area of concern