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golfer38

Front Porch Columns

golfer38
12 years ago

Hello everyone and thanks for any feedback or suggestions.

I have 4 pillars/columns on the front porch of my house. They stand about 22 feet high and hold up an overhanging section of my house. The bottoms of each of the columns is starting to rot away. Some pillars are worse than others. They are load bearing.

I am planning on cutting the bottom 36"-48" of each of the columns and building a planter of sorts. This will save me from having to buy all new columns.

I will use 6x6 pt about 18" long and cross stack them until the height of 36" or 48" is reached. I will have them stick out abit all around the pillar which is about 14" in diameter so I can have something to nail to when I finish the planter.

To hold the column in place, I will be renting an scissor lift (30') and drilling a hole in the column about 5' or so from the top. I will then run a long bolt through it, attach a couple 2x4's to it, screw it in place and then nail the 2x4's to the overhang of the house. When done, I can wood fill in the holes, sand and paint.

I am now trying to find a way to jack up the overhang only 1" to 2" inches to make sure all is level and so I can slide the 6x6's in place. I will then lower the column onto the 6x6's and move on to the next one.

My question is, how to jack up the over hang 1"-2" from the porch to the top (around 22 feet).

There are a few other areas I will do, like attach the bottom ring of the column before setting on the 6x6's, caulking etc..

Is this a good approach?

Thanks,

Jim

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