Well a bit of concern and a little probing has yielded some serious troubles. Apparently the "newly replaced" columns aren't what they're cracked up to be. I always thought the bases were a bit crude looking, and one day thought I would use the old screwdriver probe to make sure things were OK - well guess what?! This weekend I decided to check all of them more thoroughly and found a second bad base, but worse I found the columns itself was starting to rot too - yikes! Apparently they were not installed right. The bottoms were probably not painted and they are sitting directly on the concrete pedestal. There should be a moisture buffer. So after a bit of research and a few prices I placed my order today with
Pacific Columns for 5 new FIBERGLASS columns. I was able to get all 5 delivered to my door for just shy of $800 - not as bad as I though it would be. They should get here in about 4 weeks.... stay tuned.
The only positive is that the columns the PO installed were not the right size which bugged me a bit. These are 8 inch dia. and the originals were 10 inch. It doesn't sound like much, but you can see the outline on the pedestal where the original was. And looking at them with the entire porch, the scale just ain't right. Looking at the old photos with the originals, they just tie everything together better. It's kinda like using 2 inch casing moulding and 4 inch baseboards in a room with 9-10 foot ceiling - it just don't look right. So now I have an excuse to make them right.
1 comment:
Rotted column. Been there, done that. Mine was square so I was able to cut off a bit of rot at the bottom and then hide the repair with trim.
$800 is not bad for 5 columns delivered to your door. If I had to guess I would have said twice that.
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