Post #340986 by rotten_tiki on Mon, Oct 29, 2007 8:23 AM

Thanks for the advice, tiki_zen!

I spent most of the weekend working on our tiki (named Spicoli by my wife). First I cut about 4" off the bottom of the tiki to remove the rotten portion and give him a flat, solid base. He can now stand up straight without assistance and is pretty close to plumb.

Next, I dug the remainder of the tiki out of the ground. The tiki originally went into the ground about 2'. I was planning on going down 3' as you recommended, but I hit water just past 2' so I stopped there. I built a concrete form with the top about 3-4" above ground level. This should be high enough so that the landscapers will hit concrete with the weedwacker string, not wood. The concrete base is about 14" square, with a 4" pvc pipe in the middle.

The 4" pipe will act as a guide for a 3" pvc pipe that will be driven as fas as possible up the center of the tiki. I should be able to drive it about 5' up from the base. This will allow me to slide the tiki onto the base and center and shim it so that it is plumb. I'll secure the 3" pvc pipe with 3 or 4 stainless lag bolts through the back of the tiki. I used pvc because it will never rust, is readily available and inexpensive. I thought about using aluminum, but I couldn't find any place locally that was open on Saturday. The pvc should be more than strong enough, and in the event that a car hits the mailbox, it should snap off cleanly at the base and minimize any damage to the tiki. At least that's the theory... :)

I'm planing on building a platform from either pressure treated 4x4 or trex to get it up a little higher, minimize any further rotting and hide most of the concrete. We'll see.

I'm still researching the wood hardening materials. I haven't decided to do that yet.

The idea of using L brackets seems feasible, but I'm afraid that it would put a lot of stress on only 4 points really close to the ground. The wood where they would be attached to is pretty soft. In order to be really effective, I think the brackets would have to be pretty long (over a foot), and that wouldn't look too good. I really liked you suggestion to get it up off the ground though, which I why I'm building the wood platform.

There is still plenty of work left, but at least the hard work is done. I'll post some pics as soon as I get them off the camera.

Thanks again!