The screwdriver went in three-quarters of an inch before it stopped. I'd only meant to tap the board. It was Thursday afternoon, March 5, the first day warm enough that the snow drift in the southwest corner of the porch had melted back to bare wood, and when I stepped over to look at the window boxes, the board under my left foot gave a little. Not a lot. Just enough that my stomach dropped before my brain caught up.
What the screwdriver found
Our porch floor is tongue-and-groove fir, narrow boards running from the house out to the edge, and as far as we know it's original, which would make it 102 years old this year. It's been painted many times. In that southwest corner, right beside the last turned column, the paint had gone dull and crazed into tiny squares, and there was a dark stain along the joints that I'd noticed in the fall and decided was dirt.
I got a flat screwdriver from the kitchen drawer and started poking, the way I once watched a home inspector do it. Healthy wood fights back; the tip skids or barely dents it. In an area about two feet across around the base of the column, the tip sank in easily, and on one board it went in up to the shank. When I pressed with my thumb, I could feel the board flex. Three boards were soft, maybe more where I couldn't reach. The bottom of the column's base looked dark and punky too, like wet cardboard.
Nate got home, took one look and went for a flashlight. The porch sits on a low foundation with a lattice skirt around it, and he lay on the cold ground and shined the light underneath from beside the steps. He could see that the underside of the boards in that corner was darker than everywhere else, but he couldn't get close enough to see the framing without pulling the lattice off. Sal came over from next door, pressed the board with the toe of his boot and said, "That's done." Sal was a mason for decades and doesn't use more words than he needs.
How we got here, and my part in it
The southwest corner is where the weather comes onto the porch. Snow drifts there every winter, summer storms blow rain in sideways, and the column at the corner collects water at its base. That's the corner's fault.
Here's mine. For the last few summers, that's also where I've lined up tomato buckets and fabric pots, because it's the sunniest spot on the property. Last summer I hand-watered 34 containers with the galvanized can and the hose, and every pot in that corner drained straight onto the floor. Some days it never fully dried out between waterings. I don't know how much that sped things along, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't keep me up on Thursday night.
Why we're calling for quotes now
A soft spot is not a hole, and nobody is going through the floor tomorrow. But a few things made this feel like a "now" problem rather than a "someday" one.
The weight, for one. This porch holds most of our container garden. A 5-gallon bucket of wet soil with a tomato plant in it weighs somewhere around 40 to 50 pounds, and I had four of them in that corner last summer. Then there's the column. If the base of a porch column is rotting, it's holding up part of the roof, and that is not something to guess about. And there's the calendar. Contractors around here fill up their spring and early summer fast, and I'd rather get on someone's schedule now than in May.
I'm assuming rot counts as maintenance and isn't something our homeowners policy would cover, but I'm not going to assume out loud. Once we have a real scope of work, I'll sit down with our actual policy instead of guessing.
So the plan is three quotes: a handyman, a carpenter and a general contractor, so we can see the range and understand what each one would actually fix. Two names came from coworkers and one from Sal. The first visit is the week after next.
For now, I've run a line of blue painter's tape around the soft area, the same way I mark off wet paintings on the classroom floor, and moved the two pots that were sitting there to the other end of the porch. The bench stays put. Pim, who isn't allowed near the porch pots anyway, has decided the blue tape is a new toy, so the screen door stays latched.
Late this afternoon the sun came through the columns and turned the old boards a warm orange, and from the steps you'd never know anything was wrong.
