Deck Repair in Forest Park, OH

Forest Park (ZIP 45240) built out through the 1960s and 70s, and one thing that was ordinary practice then was standing a post in a hole and pouring concrete around it. It looked like the most solid version available and it is the arrangement that decides how a repair here has to be done.

A post encased in concrete cannot be pulled and it cannot be cut back and lifted, because the bottom of it is locked into a block in the ground. It is also the arrangement that puts timber below grade in permanently damp material, which is why these are the posts that go first at the point where the concrete meets the air. So the failure is at a place you can see and the fix is at a place you cannot get to, and that combination is what makes this different from every other post repair.

There are two real answers and both leave the old concrete where it is. The post can be cut off cleanly at the top of the pier, the concrete cut down or dressed to shed water, and a new post set on a standoff base drilled and anchored into what is left, which turns a buried post into a normal one. Or, where the concrete is failing as well, a new pier goes in alongside and the beam gets picked up on a new post beside the old line. Breaking out the original block is a third option and it is almost always the most expensive and least necessary. We show you which of the two applies before anything is dug.