True Dimensional Lumber Repairs

By Clint C. Thomas, Esq.

“They don’t build them like this anymore,” is a phrase that we have all heard in connection with old houses. Those words take on a whole new meaning after you’ve actually gotten your hands dirty while working on an historic property. Older homes were built in a very different manner from houses that are built today. They were usually framed with rough-hewn lumber, balloon framing was common, and mortise-and-tenon joints were as normal as a nail gun is today.

My family and I have the privilege of living in a Victorian home that was built circa 1890. Recently, I had to make a repair to the side porch where it connects to a corner of the house. Over the years, the deluge of rainwater running off the porch roof eventually caused it to rot along with the skirt that covers the porch’s structural components.

The majority of the original porch floor was unaffected and is still as solid as the day it was first installed. I decided to repair only what was actually damaged so I could retain as much of the original wood as possible. Only the outside six to eight inches of floor had been damaged. Therefore, I made the decision to remove enough flooring to go from the outside edge in as far as the first floor joist. This distance measured 19 inches.

Damage Removal

For my first step, I located the first floor joist in from the edge of the porch, and cut a line parallel with the edge of the porch with my circular saw. To do this, I set my blade at a depth to cut through the flooring, but nothing else. I tore out the rotten tongue and groove with a framing hammer, removed all of the old nails and then pried off the original skirt.

I attached a new joist onto the original one using pressure-treated lumber and lag bolts. The original joist did not have any damage, but it was easier to use it as a guide for the saw blade than to try and cut a perfectly straight line along the midpoint of an existing joist.

Today's commonly available 3/4-by-3-1/2"“1x4's” were not large enough for simple replacement of the old boards. The original flooring measured 1-1/8" thick and 2-3/4" wide.

Right-Size Replacement

Next came the hard part. The home’s original porch flooring, like all of the other original lumber in the house, is true dimensional. This means that a 2-by-4 stud actually measures 2 inches by 4 inches, and not 1-1/2-by-3-1/2 inches as is commonly available today. The porch floor was a real oddity because it actually measured 1-1/8 inches thick and 2-3/4 inches wide. It had been milled from heart pine and even after 120 years it still produced a strong smell of sap when sawed.