Porch floor replacement

[jhart]

Looking at replacing the floorboards on my 115 year old home's front, covered porch. Choices have come down to using either T & G Douglas fir or pressure treated T & G pine. We're leaning towards the PT pine. Can't afford some of the more exotic like Ipe, etc., and really don't like the look of Trex and that type.

Would welcome any opinions or other suggestions.

Thinking at this point is to use a semi transparent, oil based, stain/sealer Like Olympic, that we have used on our deck in back, and have had good results from.

[atgcpaul]

How do you plan to work around the posts that support the roof? I'm going
to need to do this, too, and haven't figured that out yet.

My house is 11 years old and the T&G PT pine is failing at the porch entrance
where the sun and rain beat on it. I want to keep it natural but I noticed that
many of my neighbors painted theirs and they look to be in very good
condition.

[crokett]

I've helped repair or replace 2 porch floors, one in the house I grew up in and the other on my parents' current civil war-era house. The way we worked around the posts was to replace the floor up close to the existing post, then create temporary braces by nailing 2 2x4s into a T-beam, then jacking into place with a bottle jack, then removing the post. Then we finished the floor under the post. We did not put the posts back until we had painted under them.

[jhart]

We plan on using 4 X 4's with jacks, replace the existing posts and then doing the floor around the posts. The existing posts have 1 X 8's around the existing posts in a square pattern and will do a similar pattern going down to the floor. I don't believe the posts and flooring are origional to the house.
The floor boards have been painted in the past, which we redid a couple of years ago, but again looking shabby and some are rotting. Additionally, one side of the roof is down about 2" and needs to be brought back up. New support posts should fix that problem.

[StickSeler]

IF your going to paint it, Look for a Primed PT Pine. We have that down here and it gives good results. The treatment is not like a deck with ACQ or CA, Im not sure the preservative.

Regular PT porch floor is an OK product but its unstable and adds problems with water retention. IMHO regular pine porch flooring is better than PT but its a PITA because of the primer on all 6 sides.

Also check around for Brazillion Redwood. Its not bad in price (Cheaper than Ipe) and looks good when down. You have to be careful when you install because of its hardness. I think the extra you pay for it is made up for with the lower maintenance and no need to paint.

[jhart]

Update -- Well what started as a fairly simple job has now turned into a fairly big one. Turns out that the squared 1 X8's (4 of them) were not surrounding any posts. They were the support for the roof. On top of that, there were no real footings. What was used for footings was brick support built up to a height of about 3 feet. So now we're tearing out all of the bricks, will be digging and pouring new footings and build it the right was.

Some of the areas in the bricks where the bricks failed, were filled in with pieces of wood. Somebody before us really did a jerryrigging of a job. I'm amazed the thing has stayed up.

The fun now begins!!!

[Uncle Cracker]

Well, Joe, look on the bright side... At least by your having to tear more out, you'll be getting more of it done the way you want it to be...

[Hellrazor]

That is the "fun" part of fixing things up, you never know what you will find under it. I've run into a bunch of issues that made you wonder what was holding the roof up.