I’m putting a covered wraparound porch on my old house and am using treated 6 x 6s for the posts. At the start of last summer, i was called away from the job and a section of the posts, which were not yet attached with top crossbeams and rafters, soon warped after the intense and persistent heat of 90+ degrees. Each post, mind you, is set in concrete.
I’m pretty much thinking that I’ll pull out the posts and concrete and insert new ones. But I’m wondering, too, from the position of strength and eye attraction, if cutting each post below the warp and notching to a new shorter post wouldn’t work just as well. This section of porch takes most of the wind.
Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated and mulled. If in support of notching, what length should the overlap be? Also, which fasteners would you recommend?
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Wet treated posts will warp in the sun from uneven drying.
If you could dry them evenly, they'll be alright.
If you tie the tops together while wet and b/4 they bake in the sun, you might be alright.
You're surrounding them with concrete? When they shrink there will be a funnel made by the now oversized concrete sleeve that will bring them constant water to sit in. If these aren't super treated (like what you could use for in constant water submersion) they can and do rot-The .60 is way better than .40 (which can be buried, but not in a concrete sleeve), the .20 is a landscape timber-meant to sit on top of the ground.
Why not pour a footing up to (or above) grade (sonotube or deck footing form) and imbed a simpson post mount-then go up from there. The roof will tie in the tops, the deck frame will tie in the lower posts. You could wrap posts with something more eye pleasing.
Best of luck.
exposed or skinned posts?
What was your original design intent...to leave the posts exposed or to skin them? With them being twisted, have you just considered skinning them if that was not your original plan?
If you can skin them, I'd square the tops of the posts to each other. Snap a few lines and essentially pare the twist away, leaving equal-sized tenons on the tops of the posts. Then you can sandwich the tenon with 2-by stock, that can be your carrying beam for the ends of the roof rafters.
Then skin the posts.
Your original proposal can work, but for me a big part of it is how structural these posts are, and how structural your repair will be in terms of tying them together for both racking resistance and uplift.