Replacing Support Columns On The Screened In Porch

After pulling out some of the facing on the screened porch, it was apparent that only luck was holding up the roof:

So, off to Lowe's I went to purchase 4x4x8 pressure treated beams. I also opted to go with steel brackets to hold the bottom of the 4x4 columns, so I needed to drill into the concrete footing to anchor them. Unfortunately my 20 year old corded Black & Decker drill wasn't quite going to cut it, so I spent around $220 on a DeWalt 18 volt cordless. I was pleasantly surprised to learn my purchase earned me a $50 Lowe's card rebate at the register!

The first thing I did was provide some temporary support for the roof by wedging three of the beams into various positions to take roof load if anything went wrong.

Next I removed the old column - which as you can see wasn't even sitting on anything. They had simply cut a square into the sill to sit the column inside and toe-nailed into the sill around it. Not quite sure how... I'm guessing at one time there was something underneath the column.

After cutting out the surrounding wood, I needed to set the bracket into the concrete to support the new column. If I were building it from scratch I would have gone to the edge of the slab with it, but the old post was inset about 2 1/2' from the outside. Moving the post out would have required replacing the header that supports the roof joists, and is more than I want to deal with so I decided to place the new column in the same location as the old. I attached an eyehook into the center of where the old column was touching the header, and strung yarn down to a screwdriver at the bottom. This is my ghetto plumb level:

I was surprised at how easy it was to drill into the slab with the right tools. I'd tried drilling into concrete a few years ago and failed miserably. With a powerful drill and the right bit, things went very fast. I used hex head concrete lag screws to anchor the bracket to the slab.

By then it was dark, so I just installed two screws into the bracket and will toe-nail the top of it into the header tomorrow. There's enough weight on it, it's not going anywhere. I had to knock it into place with a sledge hammer.imported-467