King Post Before: Rotted Horizontal Member

Replacement piece being installed

Restored King Post!

I should start out by saying that a King Post is a decorative truss. In our case we have two and they are located in the eaves of the roof.  When we bought the house I didn’t know what to call them (they don’t teach you this kind of stuff in Architectural School). Anyway, both of the King Posts on our house are rotting. There are no two ways around it. When we had the house re-sided and painted 5 years ago we had them patch it up as best as possible. However after less than 2 years they really started to deteriorate. Unfortunately, getting to them is VERY difficult. So last week, I was surprised when the chimney contractors showed me that you could get to one of the King Posts via the crane. Fortunately, the stars aligned and my neighbor/carpenter agreed to come over and fix it right away. He also miraculously happened to have a piece of wood that was a full 2″x4″x8′ to work from. A modern 2×4 is only 1 /2″ x 3 1/2″. It is pretty difficult these days to get good dimension lumber! So he showed up in the morning, went up on the lift with the chimney guys and took down the rotted horizontal piece. Later that day he came back with a new piece cut, chamfered  and already primed piece. He then went up and installed it and painted it. He even added a nice little detail in the middle (to help hold the whole thing together).

The second King Post on the front of the house will be more difficult to get to (because of the slope of the ground and the bay window). Our carpenter is going to see if he get there with a ladder. Otherwise we will have to devise some kind of scaffolding to get up there. He is also going to work on my front porch (lots of little repairs to do) and add some steps to the side. Very exciting!