Replacing Beams and Posts

Post Reply | Watch this Post

I have a couple of very interesting home improvement projects that I need to complete.
First:
I need to replace an 8x8 post holding up my front porch. I think this will be pretty easy.. Well what I was thinking was using a jack to jack up the corner of the porch a little to free the old post, then replacing it with the new one. What do you think?

Second:
I need to replace the 4x6x20 header on my patio. Years ago we replaced the 3 4x4 posts that attach to the header to hold up the patio. This was accomplished by jacking up the patio enough to remove the posts. This seems a little harder being the beam is 20 foot long and horizontal. What I was thinking was disconnecting everything that holds the beam in place, have a few of my buddies hold the new beam up next to the old one and genitally tap the new one in place while pushing the old one out. What do you think would be the best idea for this?

Thanks