…eleven months almost to the day after I built it.
The last act of the floor this morning was to hold up the ladder as I took the facing boards off the vigas. The facing boards were only cosmetic but now the vigas will be needed to hold up the roof, and the boards will be reassigned for honorable duty as floor joists.
Then I pulled up half the floor…
…and it was all supposed to be very straightforward from here. Install a few joists, cut a bunch of pressure treated 2X6s to length, use up a bunch of deck screws, Miller time. And if that were all there were to it, it would be that simple.
Unfortunately there’s a problem, and I haven’t figured out a solution.
Each of the five 4X4 uprights holding up the porch has taken a slight tilt to the left. As things are, it’s no big deal: Noticeable but of no importance. But three of them are going to be extended to support the drip edge of the roof, and that will be very noticeable: Not a structural problem exactly, but it’ll look positively comical.
The only way to fix it is to remove all the supporting lumber, probably including the railings, and try to force at least those three more nearly vertical. I haven’t figured out yet how I’m going to do that.
For all of them to “become liberal” simultaneously (and I assume, equally) something had to move, and that something had to connect to all 5 and be caused to move. What was it, and what caused it to shift left?
I think I remember the pics from the build a year ago, and IIRC the bases for the posts are pre-cast concrete and were not set very deep; if the posts are “resting” on top of the bases that won’t offer much resistance to the posts moving. Supports deeper is better, a lot deeper is a lot better. But, I’d expect – maybe- individual bases to shift, not all 5 and not all in the same direction; it has to be something higher up that’s structural and connected to all 5.
Ths issue is finding and fixing the cause because otherwise it’ll just come back, and create larger problems with the roof. Random thought: it means re-engineering the roof, but what if the porch remains as-built (that means putting the boards back….) and the porch gets supported by new vertical posts.
Had a quick thought: if the porch shifted left as viewed from the front, in what direction do you walk and suddenly stop when accessing the porch? If the posts are resting on top of shallow supports, walking to the front door and stopping means the porch structure has to resist momentum from X pounds Y times/day and an unanchored post can’t contribute to resisting that load, it would have to be performed entirely by the porch-to-house attachment.
There would also be force applied in the opposite direction each time you exited the house and walked to the stairs.
If that’s the cause, burying the posts deeper and adding diagonal supports to distribute the load from porch deck to the posts at ground level should be adequate. Assuming failure to adequately resist horizontal momentum is the cause, it might be possible to jack or pull the posts back to vertical and add the diagonal bracing to keep them there.
Depending on the spaec between posts, perhaps borrow a hilift jack to spread them apart and then a brace between them to keep them spread?
Come-alongs:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Big-Red-2-Ton-Come-Along-Cable-Puller-with-2-Hooks-TR8021/100594355
work wonders at deflecting posts which are not plumb. Hook one end to the Jeep, and the other end to a wayward post…
I had typed up a lengthy email discussion of this matter, but decided you’re going to get more advice than you need . . . so I deleted it.
I’ll second one thought from above . . . DIAGONAL BRACING IS A MUST.
What the others have said. Get your posts vertical, and put in heavy diagonal bracing. If you don’t want to do wood (which is easy) you can always use cable bracing, but some serious diagonal bracing is a must.
Check the mounts of your house, too. Make sure the house isn’t shifting and dragging the porch with it. If so, then you need to do some serious shoring and pinning of your house before you mess around with the porch.
Something has to have caused the leaning posts. You did use a good level when installing them, right? (Sounds silly, but sometimes the easiest explanation is the explanation.)
Good luck on chasing your lean issue. Hope it’s an easy fix.
Is it the whole post that leans or just the upper portion that was only anchored on the bottom? From the photo it looks like it might be the latter in which case it’s probably due to warping rather than structural problems. Does the side it leans towards get more sun than the other? If so it’d be drying faster than the shaded side which might explain it.
Well, there are lots of ideas here. Mine mixes a couple ideas from them, and it should be quick and cheap to do: Don’t take anything else apart! Use a cable hoist crosswise (upper left to lower right) to pull the entire assembly into plumb, and then nail on appropriate cross bracing to hold it in shape. Treated 1″ X 4″ wood should do fine for the braces (or use whatever you have on hand)
And then move on with your life!
Sorry about the number of comments, but…when creating/installing diagonal bracing, bracing in compression offers greater resistance to movement than bracing in tension (the two conditions can occur simultaneously but also sequentially with uniform (mirror image) brace design) and either will have its effectiveness reduced if attached in shear. Keeping bracing and anchor points in one plane also improves performance.
Don’t be afraid of skipping a vertical to gain advantage in thrust angle; usually, it’s most advantageous to stay at or slightly under 45 degrees, and always incorporate a right angle.
I love this blog. So much I’ve never thought about related to diagonal bracing. You all are top class. Hope it turns out to be due to warping. As I also live in the hot and dry with times of wet and have to buy whatever lumber is for sale, I know the effects of the poor quality wood available to us common consumers and have spent many happy hours going through stacks of wood to find a few good pieces. Lots of it in addition to being poor quality initially isn’t dried properly. When it twists as it dries it can rip a structure apart. Are there any older structures you could dismantle to salvage the wood?
Perhaps I am missing something. Are you bringing three of the 4×4’s up to support the overhang? If so why? Isn’t the overhang cantilevered…it should be self supporting.
No, there’s no way in hell it’s self-supporting. Even if I did cantilever it, which is not physically impossible, I’d be asking it to Tacoma Narrows its ass onto my head the first good windstorm we get. This sucker needs to be nailed down – and by “nailed down” I mean not literally nailed down, that’s how I nearly lost the powershed roof, but hurricane strapped into complete, slavish submission.
Well then…what about putting 45 degree supports below each end of the overhang. Lag the lower part of the supports to the frame of your house (corner post). Then tie the supports into the bottom and the side to the 2 x 6 frame of the overhang. This should stop the overhang from coming down or going up from high winds or snow loads etc.
I don’t know if this is still in the works, as I’m a few days late to the party- but this isn’t really that big of an issue, as the square was mostly being held by the decking. A regular nylon tie strap should be able to pull things square, and then just take it off when you are finished. There isn’t enough structure in those railings to cause a problem. It most likely did not become out of plumb until you took the decking off.