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Hello
I'm painting my front steps and the stoop. The paint has been flaking off the bottom of the support columns, when I peeled it off the wood underneath is waterlogged. This isn't the result of one particular storm, I remember last time I painted, year or two ago, they were wet then too. The columns appear to be at least partially hollow, so my first though was to drill a hole from underneath and create a drain, but there must be some metal hardware
involved because I couldn't drill through. Should I be looking for a leak from above (the tiles on top of the stoop look fine)? My other though was to drill hole toward the bottom pillars and stick in some kind of plastic vent to allow the moisture to escape. Any ideas? Is this a common problem? Thanks!

I posted an image he

http://i61.tinypic.com/2ufq5ol.png

Your column looks exactly like an episode on "Ask this gnarly House" Tom
Sliver jacked up the roof then cut the rotten part off and used a scarf
joint to replace the rotten stuff. IIRC he used PT wood. While you are
doing it do all the columns. Not an uncommon problem.

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Tekkie