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These gluelam beams hold up not only the balcony but the whole second floor. Kind of scary isn't it! The rot was mostly conceiled by the side planks and decking, so we didn't know just how extensive it was when we bought the place. Caveat Emptor! |
After months of fretting, I finally devised a workable plan to repair them.
Right about now, all the neighbors and the construction workers building the house next door think I'm crazy!
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After this first beam we decide the function Monika is performing here (keeping the saw from sliding out of the guide while I readjust the jig), could be better performed by a plank clamped in place. (This saved her the effort of cleaning a lot of sawdust out of her hair, pockets, and bra. :) |
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Hmmm. It begins to look like I might know what I'm doing. |
The glue up turns out to consume about three hours, much more than I thought.
Got better at it by the second one. It still takes the two of us three hours to glue up the beam in place, me clamping and screwing each plank in place while Monika spreads glue on the next one. It takes about a week of hard work to repair each beam.
I'm not looking so crazy now.
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Including about a day of hard work with a belt sander. (You also see here the secret of how I fix the upper post in place). |
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Uhggg! The last one is also made out of "cheese". Before I opened the side, I thought I might be able to just splice a few planks on top of this one as most of the wood was solid on each side of the post. But this one will need a complete splice also. All this rot happened because the standard construction technique is for the carpenters to build, and THEN the painters come in and paint. All wood needs to be painted before it is assembled so that water doesn't get into the joints between the boards. |
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Last one. |
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Now all the neighbors think I'm a genius. (Or at least very hard worker). |
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Monika is chief painter. We let the wood air dry in place to get the moisture content down before painting. (I check periodically with a lumber moisture meter). |