Column Left March. This is the old house on Beach Drive (circa 1930) where I’ve been replacing some rotten wood, prior to painting. When I first looked at the job the owner said that he wanted the old caulk stripped out of the columns and then re-caulk them. When I got around to starting on them, it got a little more complicated than that. This is the first photo I took (with the old camera) and it shows where I have pulled out the front part of one base. These columns are about 17'5" from the step to the underside of the beam that sits on them. The actual column is about 16' and the rest is a concrete pedestal, then a base made up of two inch thick rounded piece and a 3/4" fluted piece, mitered at the corners and a square piece on the top (I don’t know how it was made). I found out after I got up there that the little molding near the top is actually let into the column about a quarter inch.

This picture shows how the column was assembled. These are actually pieces of the parts I used to repair the rotted parts of the columns. The corners are made with ½X ½ inch tongue going into a groove in the edge of each board. When I got to pulling out the caulk, I found that the corners were pulling out of the groove and letting the boards take on a curve – that is the columns were getting fatter as they came apart. This had been going on for a long time because on some corners the caulk from previous paint jobs was all the way into the groove. And it was the old kind of caulk the got as hard as concrete. It all had to come out so I could pull the columns back together and re-fasten them. The original nails were rusted, which causes the wood to deteriorate around them, enlarging the hole and they no longer hold (they just pull out). Nails do not hold well in tension as a rule. After digging the caulk out, I pulled the columns together as tight as I could with six pipe clamps. When I had turned the clamps as tight as I could (even using a hammer to turn the handles) I used a two pound hammer and beater block to pound on the sides to make them a little tighter. When the joint was a tight as I could get it, I fastened it with 3" stainless steel screws each way at each corner and about two feet apart. You can see the clamps in this next picture.

The base of all columns were rotted to some degree and had to be replaced. To do this I had to jack up the column (and the roof above it), slide the old base out and slide a new one in. Normally, when we do this, we use a long crutch beside the column, but, in this case that wasn’t going to work. At least for me working alone. My first plan was to knock out

the front and the back of the base and slip a short piece of 2X8 though the opening, set it on blocks on the back and jack it from the front (where the step gave me room to set the jack) and replace the two side pieces. It worked, but not well, because, as you can see the 2X8 got a pretty good bend in it and started to crack. I managed to get it done, even though I had some trouble getting the two other segments of the base in, after I let the jack down.

For the rest of the columns I modified the jacking system – just taking out one segment of the base and putting my block inside the column, I could lift it with a shorter lever. The other advantage was that I could make up three sides of the new base and slip it in as a unit – just had to worry about holding the dimension of the last side till after the jack was out.

Panels under window replaced, and columns on each side and bottom siding to corner of building.

It all worked out and I got it done in time for the painters to get it all caulked and painted. In all I spent the better part of ten days climbing up and down the columns. This last picture shows the final result.

Corner of eave repaired after I figured out how to get up there.

Bottom of panels replaced – fifteen pieces of wood – took the better part of a day.

The bottom rail of the window unit was all rotted – built a complete new window frame and put the old glass in it.

Sept 2003

P.S. Some of the other work on the same house.