Deck Repair and Foundation Post Reinforcement

Ive been wanting to do some minor fixes that probably wasnt worth it to bother our General Contractors and probably something I could do, but it would take me forever because Im not too good with tools yet. I decided to once again (and will probably time and time again) decided to reach out to my super handy Uncle that kind of knows everything....Uncle Ed. 

He did help me with some items earlier in the project and Ive reached out to him to help with some more items and much needed items for safety. 

In our crawl space when cleaning it up, I did notice some bad foundation piers that were starting to fail (from age, moisture, etc) and didnt want to chance it from being a larger issue in the future. The solution was to fix the possible weak piers and to add a brand new one in between to ensure if one fails, the new pier is there to hold the structure up still. Peace of mind type of project...probably not needed now, but would be in the future and just taking some measure to address it now before it gets serious.

For our deck, we had a large tree stump that was removed. Unfortunately, the tree stump was so large, they built the deck around it. At some point in time, it was a huge redwood, butgot cut before I even bought the place, they they left the stump visible from the deck and now that its gone, I had a huge hole to fill. It was clearly a safety thing. This is another item he was going to fix.

Here you go:

This is where the tree trunk was. I started pictures late, but it was a little more rounded and Uncle Ed had to cut the edges off to make a nice clean area to put new redwood planks. This was just open waiting for someone to fall in before.

Uncle Ed at work...I have a trailer in front of my house with demolition wood from job sites. We decided to use some redwood we found for reinforcements under the deck for the new planks.

Reinforcement beams in place. This was a bit odd to do because of the rounded hole that was cut for the tree....so no straight cuts here. It was challenging, but Uncle Ed knew what to do.

Done deal, better than I thought it would look. 

TADA!  From this angle, you can see how NOT STRAIGHT the deck is. Not sure what the reasoning was...but it works for now. Uncle Ed blended the Facia in front in with the rest of the deck. Clearly need to stain the deck and protect it when I have the time. Looks great though - no more worries about kids falling in...or my dogs.

Fully usable now. YES.

Shot from below.

Front Facia - Pretty good for the angles that needed to be cut. Im happy.

Foundation Piers sistered to existing posts. The center one is the new one that was put in in case the rear one fails (third one over). Notice the concrete pier is deteriorating. That was my concern. 

New pier (closest), old pier in the back. Notice the reinforcement wood - common item called "sistering". Im sure its fine without it, but the pier was starting to break apart, so it was best to TRY and do something to stabilize it. 

Now that we have the new support in place, this one will be easier to replace when we get to that point.  We decided to leave it for now, but it will get replaced soon.

...Till the next items on the lists.