Dicey Work

I took a photo of the old beams as they took them out.  It appears that they came from an old barn.  Notice the beam toward the bottom of the picture.  It's not as noticeable in the picture, but it looks like the beam was burned.  It's possible these beams were salvaged from a barn that burned down in the area.

All of the beams on the east wing porches have been replaced, and our trusty guys from Hume (Chad and Chris) managed to keep the second floor porches from collapsing, a major concern given the skeleton like status of the porches now.  There's not much structure to hold it together!  It was difficult to brace the second floor porch while the beams were being swapped out.  This photo shows how they braced the porches.  You can also see all the new beams as well.

The Second Snag

We should have known.  If the beams were in such poor condition, we should have expected the joists would be in bad shape too.  We had a little bit of good news, the joists on the center wing porches are in pretty good shape and probably will not need to be replaced.  The joists on the first floor, east wing porches definitely need to be replaced. This photo shows the rotten joists.  We're starting to realize how lucky we were no one fell through the porch floor!

The photo below shows the new beams going in.  The contractors spread pitch on the end that will sit on the brick pier.  So this time, they will not be as susceptible to moisture damage as the previous ones were.