Post #340485 by rotten_tiki on Thu, Oct 25, 2007 11:15 AM

Aloha!

We "inherited" a tiki that supports our mailbox when we bought our house that was carved from a palm tree. Unfortunately, the years haven't been to kind to him and he has started to rot. Yesterday I noticed that the mailbox had started to pull off of the tiki so I went out to try to repair it. Upon further inspection, I found the tiki was a little wobbly, so I gave him a little "push" to see how sturdy he was. Timber! The entire base had rotted away and he tumbled into the street. Uh oh!

We have grown quite attached to him so I really don't want to get rid of him. Plus he has much more character than any mailbox we could buy at Lowes, so I am pretty determined to fix him.

So far I have come up with two approaches to repairing him. First thing I think I need to do is cut off a few inches on the bottom so that the base is square and to find some more solid wood. Next, I need to dig out the stump. After this I'm not sure how I should proceed. He is about 7' tall and maybe 10 - 12" in diameter at the base. He is very heavy!

My first thought was to sink a metal pole (like a fence post) in some concrete and slide the tiki onto it. I would need some way to secure the tiki to the pole so it doesn't spin or wobble. I'm thinking some beefy lag bolts through the back of the tiki and into the pole would be sufficient. The problem with this approach is I'm not sure if I can lift the tiki high enough to put him on the pole. Also, I'm not too sure how the concrete base will look. I thought about making a little base out of pressure treated wood to conceal the concrete.

My second approach would be to drive a pressure treated fence post into the bottom as deep as possible and just place it in a hole and backfill the hole with sand and dirt. This would be a lot easier than trying to lift the tiki.

Some questions I have are:

What should I use to cut the base? Chainsaw? Hand saw? My 12" mitre saw won't cut it.

Would pvc be a sturdy enough substitute for steel or wood? We live in coastal Florida, so anything I do would have to survive hurricane winds. The reason I bring this up is I don't want the metal or wood to rot requiring me to redo this again in a few years. We live in a very corrosive environment, and metal doesn't last very long.

How far should the support go into the tiki? My goal is to get it as far as possible, so I'm more concerned about what you think the the minimum depth should be.

Finally, how far into the ground do I need to go?

Anything else that I am missing?

Sorry for the long post, but I figured if anyone could help me, I would find them here. I tried calling our local tiki guy, but they didn't seem too interested in saving him. :(

Thanks for taking the time to read!

P.S. The light yellow buldge on his head is expanding foam. I was trying to prevent a woodpecker from finishing building his home in the tiki's head. It didn't work.

edit: fixed pics.

edit 2: my wife informed me that the tiki is actually an upside down palm tree. His "hair" were the tree's roots. Duh.

[ Edited by: rotten_tiki 2007-10-25 11:17 ]

[ Edited by: rotten_tiki 2007-10-25 11:17 ]

[ Edited by: rotten_tiki 2007-10-25 11:38 ]

[ Edited by: rotten_tiki 2007-10-25 11:39 ]