rot

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.