Front Porch - repair or replace? (long)

[DogwoodTales]

Here is a link to a video of the joists to a front porch of a home in upstate NY. It was taken during a rain storm and shortly after some heavy rain. It’s 3:23 minutes long.

This front porch was built 25 years ago. T&G pine (not pressure treated) was used for the flooring. The posts are pressure treated 4x4s with pine 1x as a wrap around the posts above the porch floor to the porch roof.  The joists to the inside are regular pine, but I think the outer beams/joists are pressure treated. Long ago there was a water control issue, which has since been corrected with a better gutter system, but the porch still gets some weathering along the outside edges. The porch faces westward.

Back in 2012 a few floor boards were replaced in one spot along the front outside edge due to weathering and rot. Along with that a splice was added to the joist directly underneath those boards as it too suffered some weathering and rot in a small area. (The spliced joist is visible right at the beginning of the video.)
Now the fascia, the front steps, and a few floor boards at each end have some rot and need to be replaced. But even though there are water spots on the regular pine joists, they are still under the porch roof and holding up well. I used a hammer (starting at around 2:20) to test the density of some of the water spotted areas. Although I didn’t hit so hard as to rip apart good wood, I feel like those water spotted areas are just as solid as the rest of the board. The roof is sound with no issues.

So no because the trim, a few outside floor boards along the sides (not along the front), and the steps need to be replaced, the home owner got an estimate for the work to be done by a couple different contractors. Both said that the joists are full of rot and need to be replaced with pressure treated boards. Contractor one would replace everything under the porch roof to the tune of $10k. Contractor two would reuse the posts and the existing pvc and spindles (to reduce material costs) to the tune of $9.5k.  Both would replace the decking with regular T&G pine as the homeowner wants to save on the cost of composite material. (Apparently western red cedar is difficult to come by in upstate NY.)

This is actually my mother’s house. My father, who passed away 6 years ago, built this porch himself. [He also built the entire house (he’s a retired carpenter and had built many houses with the family business when he was younger before taking a factory job for better pay).]
I remember him saying that the joists are regular pine (not sure about the outside runs though, those might be pressure treated). He said they are not in contact with the ground and are under roof, so they would be fine. And they appear to be in spite of having water spots on them. Using regular pine on an outside project, even this, is not something that I would do today, but it seems that 25 years with only one small issue (mentioned above) seems to show that my father is vindicated in his use of regular pine joists. My siblings are concerned that the regular pine joists are going to get eaten away by carpenter ants. I told them that I those ants would chew into pressure treated joists anyway.

I have three thoughts how to deal with this.

1 - just replace the steps, fascia, and the rotted floor boards on the ends. Use pressure treated for all replacements.

2 - rip up all of the decking (even though only some of it needs to be replaced) and the trim to give access the joists. Keep the existing joists (assuming that they are revealed to still be in sound condition), but give the joists a good seal coat of roofing tar. Then replace the decking with pressure treated flooring or composite material.

3 – just let one of the contractors replace everything under the roof to the tune of $9.5k+.

I would lean towards option one or three. Seems that option one is all we really NEED to do, but if we’re going to tear up the decking anyway to replace them with pressure treated decking and also seal the joists, then might as well as go the extra cost and replace the joists with pressure treated lumber. What are your thoughts about what needs to be done?

Thanks for your ideas.
Ray

[jasfrank]

What my experiences have been with many carpentry fixes is that 'one thing always leads to another'. It all depends on what you are satisfied with in the end, or what the objective is. If just fixing for a sale, patch it as cheaply as possible. If you are going to keep in the family for another 50-100 years, fix it right.

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

Almost any contractor is going to feel more comfortable with the "rip and replace" option. It requires an inexpensive and inexperienced demo crew followed by an experienced building crew. It is also easier to get an apples to apples comparison of costs for this option.

The patch option has risks for scope creep if more damage is uncovered. It also requires a more skilled crew and the inspection takes time. It can be hard to evaluate quotes because each one has to guess and evaluate costs of perhaps hidden additional damage. Worst case scenario is that the patch option goes south and uncovered damage requires extensive rework. It could end up costing almost as much as the rip and replace option.

A skilled handyman might be able to fix everything for less than 1k in materials and 1k in labor. In that case, 2k is much better than 10k.

Of course, as you know, the non pressure treated wood may eventually fail but it may last another 25 years with a little patching now and then.

Interesting problem. Good luck with your solution. I know your mom appreciates your help.

[Robert Adams]

Any time i get into a project that looks like that i always find more that i dont like as i go and in the end i end up replacing pretty much everything. 

     Im assuming the floor joists are yellow pine. They look like 2x8 and you cant get 2x8 in SPF at least i have never seen anything bigger than a 2x6 in SPF. It holds up pretty well but with the age and the fact they arent PT would make me look at replacement because i would never use untreated anywhere but inside a house. 

            As for decking, same there it should be treated lumber or a variety that is ok without treating as in ipe or similar. I would not use red cedar for decking. Its way too soft. Yes its available here and i have done a few projects with it but would never reccomend it. It also requires allot of maintnence to keep looking good. If you let it weather it looks just like any other weathered wood.

[DogwoodTales]

The plan is to paint.
Both contractors propose T&G pine. Same as what's already there I think and not pt. If we're going all the way with full replacement then I would like them to use pt on the decking. Seems senseless not to. I don't know, is pt an option available in t&g? (Regular deck boards is not desired on this)
I've never worked with western red cedar. Is it really that much softer than pine?

[KC]

After watching you beat on that with the hammer, I'd be perfectly comfortable leaving it alone and only replacing the obviously bad parts you mentioned.

[blackhat]

I'd go with #1.  Well painted and caulked, there's many years of life left there.

As an aside, good job cleaning that AC coil, I stumbled on the video whilst cruising Youtube a couple days ago.

[Bob10]

Iron wood works great for steps but doesn't take paint

[DogwoodTales]

Thanks on the ac unit.
I checked it again recently and it's still pretty clean. But I cut that panel all the way through this time when I had it off. Not necessary, but putting it back on was a breeze and no concerns with moving things around.