Rusty nails and rotten balustrade advice

[Olly]

Hi,

Newbie here after some advice. My 9 year old house has rotten bits at the bottom of some of the balustrades. A friend pointed out that it may be due to the rusted nails holding them to the bottom rail. I'm guessing that the nails have rusted away some and left holes for the water to get in and the bottoms have begun rotting. I have just replaced a section with new timber and galvanised nails.

The entire verandah is the same, only not so bad - there is evidence of the nails rusting, but it's not rotten. I am wondering if I remove each piece of balustrade, take the rubbish nails out, and re-nail it in with galvanised nails will it be ok, or will the existing nail holes cause a problem when it rains and accelerate us to the rotten stage?

Or, is that wasting my time and I should just start replacing each section of the remaining 35m properly without re-using the timber?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[strangerep]

My 9 year old house has rotten bits at the bottom of some of the balustrades.

Only 9 yrs?? Do you know what the timber species is? Sounds like it must have been quite unsuited to the task.



I have just replaced a section with new timber and galvanised nails.

What species of new timber did you use?



The entire verandah is the same, only not so bad - there is evidence of the nails rusting, but it's not rotten. I am wondering if I remove each piece of balustrade, take the rubbish nails out, and re-nail it in with galvanised nails will it be ok, or will the existing nail holes cause a problem when it rains and accelerate us to the rotten stage?

Screws might be a bit better than nails -- but it's likely to be merely a bandaid job. Some years ago I tried to keep some parts of an exterior timber structure and just replace the bad bits. But now the pieces I kept are showing signs of degradation. Exterior timber will always be a PITA -- it's just a matter of time.



Or, is that wasting my time and I should just start replacing each section of the remaining 35m properly without re-using the timber?

If you replace the lot, at least you'll know the new timber species. But first you'll need to do some thorough research on timber durability classes, lest you merely repeat the original errors.

[Master Splinter]

Pics would be good.

It is possible to do spot repairs to rotted timber using marine epoxy (http://boatcraft.com.au/informationpages/wotrot.htm) to consolidate and fill the timber, but if it's more than neatly localised areas then the cost of epoxy vs. replacing timber starts to be an issue