Most of this country seems to be covered with snow and ice right now. This likely helps in understanding the series of events that led to my current dilemma. Many years ago, hurricane Sandy pretty much turned my wooded lot into an open field that I could actually have a garden in. A
side effect of all the trees coming down is that they tore the original deck off the front of my house. We took that as an opportunity to replace it with a new one that was made of composites instead of actual wood. Anyone with a composite deck can probably attest to how unobviously slippery they get with the slightest bit of wetness/ice.
This brings us to a few weeks ago... someone completely lost it walking up the stairs and grabbed for whatever they could in order to brace themselves. It just so happened that the most grabbable surface in their reach were the deck posts that housed the solar lighting that was installed when putting the new deck in. This
ended up shattering one of the posts and the lighting inside.
I figure, no big deal... I'll just call the company that I originally purchased these from and get a replacement and install it
myself. It seemed like just yesterday when this was installed, so I was surprised when they told us that the exact component was no longer available. They recommended a reasonably close replacement and I special ordered two so that I could replace both of the upper most posts with matching lights.
When these new light post toppers came in, I made a surprising discovery. These are actually designed to sit on top of a 4 x 4 post. On my existing deck, the 4 x 4 post ends far below the actual top of the composite post which made fitting the new 'toppers' on impossible. I did some investigation and discovered that the original post 'toppers' were modified
to deal with the lack of a wooden 4 x 4 post at the proper height and were apparently glued onto the outer composite wrapper. No idea why this was originally done, but it explains why they were ultimately so flimsy.
I've done some investigation into how best to remedy this without completely dismantling my existing deck. Needless to say, the work is going to need to wait for better weather. Right now, it doesn't seem like modifying the toppers is the correct long term move, so I'm planning on 'extending' the wooden 4 x 4 inside by the needed length. Anyone have any idea why the original 'hack' would have been done? Is there some rationale that
I'm missing here?
