Irreparable

From a while back, some very old wood framing:

The big yellow steel beam is shoring; the condition of the post in the foreground tells you why it was there. Note that the left and right sides of the post are largely intact, as was the back side that you can’t see. This photo was taken from outside the building, and the condition of the post had been masked by the sheathing. This photo was from the first site visit after the shoring was installed and the sheathing removed.

It was not a coincidence that the shoring and sheathing removal were simultaneous. In an all-wood building, there’s every reason to believe that any piece of wood that can conceivably carry load is doing so, and even a plank exterior is a kind of shear wall, contributing to stability.

The word “irreparable” means something that cannot be repaired.* In my opinion, this post falls into that category. In theory, you could repair this post with some combination of scarfing in new wood, epoxy repairs, and pinning, but by the time you’re done, and 80 or 90 percent of the post is new material, you’re kidding yourself if you call that a repair rather than effective replacement. Most of the timbers in the building were in good shape, so it’s not like a lack of original material is an issue. The beam at the top and the diagonal brace have some damage to their tenons, which you can see quite clearly, but that is minor damage to a small percentage of the material in those members. Those were repaired. The post was replaced.

To be blunt: fetishizing original material doesn’t help fix buildings. I try to save original structure more than most people, but there comes a time when you have to stop.

* Irreparable is not yet a lost cause, like “literally,” but is unfortunately heading in that direction. It doesn’t just mean “broken.”