At 1:52 on Monday afternoon my phone buzzed in my pocket in the middle of a kindergarten clay lesson. It was a photo from Kevin: the end of a floor joist under our porch's southwest corner, dark and stringy, with his screwdriver sunk into it up to the handle. Under the photo he'd typed, "Call when you can."
Day one: what was under the boards
On Sunday, Nate and I cleared the porch. Every bucket, fabric pot and herb pot went down to the shady end or onto the front steps. The rocking chair went into the dining room, the window box nearest the corner came off the rail, and the bench got scooted as far from the work as it would go. I counted 22 trips with the hand truck before I stopped counting.
Kevin arrived at 7:30 Monday morning, and I left for school at 7:45. He started by setting a temporary post to carry the porch roof at that corner, so the column could come out from under its load. Then he pulled the rotted boards and a margin of good ones around them. That's when he found the joist end. The last foot or so of the joist that runs under the column had gone soft where water had been wicking in for who knows how many years.
When I called back during my prep period, he explained the fix: sister it. That means fastening a new length of lumber tightly alongside the old joist so the new piece carries the load, instead of tearing out the whole joist. The price was $340 for materials and the extra hours. I asked him to text it to me in writing, he did, and I texted back yes. That was the promise he'd made back in April, that he'd stop and price anything hidden before touching it, and it turned out to be worth more than the $340.
Days two through four
Tuesday morning the sister went in. In the afternoon he rebuilt the base of the turned column. The bottom few inches had rotted, so he cut them away and set the column on a new plinth made of a material that can't rot, then installed new flashing at that corner so water sheds out and away instead of in. Nate came home early to watch. He estimates electrical jobs for a living, and he loves seeing how other trades think through a problem.
Wednesday was boards: 64 square feet of new vertical-grain fir tongue-and-groove, every piece primed on all sides before it went down, blind-nailed through the tongues so no nail heads show. The raw fir is a pale honey color with tight, straight grain lines, like a sheet of ruled paper.
Thursday was trim, a pass with a hand plane where new boards meet old, a new nosing along the front edge, cleanup (he swept better than we do) and a walk-through. His last instruction was to give the new fir a couple of weeks before we paint, so the primer and paint go on at the end of the school year.
Pim spent all four days under our bed and came out at about 3:30 each afternoon, once the nail gun stopped.
The final bill: $6,640
The quote was $6,300. Add $340 for the sistered joist and the final invoice came to $6,640, paid from the savings account we call the house fund, not the garden budget. It's still well under the $9,700 we were quoted to replace the whole floor, and the invoice is in the house file with the photos Kevin sent.
What I'd ask next time, before signing:
- How will you price hidden damage? Kevin handled it well, but I'd ask for a ballpark number per joist end up front, so the phone call isn't a surprise at all.
- Can you see the framing before you quote? He did look underneath with a flashlight, but that joist end sat right behind the column footing, where nobody could see it without lifting boards.
- Will you put any change in writing first? A text counts. It protects both of us.
- What caused this, and what should we do differently? His answer stung a little.
Here's the sting. The southwest corner is where I've clustered my sunniest, most-watered pots for six summers. Kevin said most of the damage came from rain running down the column, but saucers of water sitting on old boards for years didn't help. So from now on every pot on the porch sits on little feet or a pair of wood scraps, so water drains off and the boards can dry. That one's on me, and it went into the notebook.
On Thursday evening the new corner glowed pale gold next to the old, scuffed floor, like a new patch on a favorite pair of jeans. Mateo walked across it four times just to feel it not give.
