Gregory Clarke
July 26, 2026
3 days ago
Starting with 20 foot structural columns, we see these rotting at their bases and not really able to do the work of supporting the deck and roof above…. They are prohibitively expensive to replace entirely, so repair presented the best path forward. Noting, however, that they had been previously repaired badly, as you can see from the photos… Literally held together with duct tape.
We did some exploratory work to see just how far the rot extended; this included opening up the base and peeling back the duct tape and the paint so we could see the wood, which is the actual column. It was bad, as expected.
Columns in various stages of decomp and recomposition. We adapted a floor router to glide the column surface and remove outer layers of material and to make room for the addition of epoxy reinforced material…. This is how we fused the new base with the existing column shaft.
Columns were finished with a combination of fabric, epoxy and bondo. And here, you can see the last stages of that process