If there's beer there I'll swing by and take a look....you're just up the road
That would be pretty cool if you are up for it! I know you have your own things going on so I hate to put you out...but if you did come by sometime, I certainly have beer available! The kegerator is still a few months off based on my current progress unfortunately. ;-)
The PB came by again today because apparently the company he had planned on using backed out of the project...he was explaining the issue to a new person today. I still don't have my head around it fully, but it sounded like the issue related to the brackets and beams.
I think he was saying they would normally weld the brackets onto the posts and then put the beams in place but he didn't think that would be feasible here because the roof can't lift sufficiently to allow the clearance necessary for this monster 40' 10x16 beam...so it would have to be slid in or something which he didn't think was going to work.
Each bracket will actually support two beams -- the long one and then a short one from the post to the house, and those are different sizes. I think he was suggesting that complicates things, presumably because it may be too difficult to get the beams/bracket to line up precisely enough...ie, if you pre-weld the bracket to the installed posts, which he seemed to say had to be done, the beams may not go in properly.
At least, that's what I think he was saying -- he has a very thick accent and again, this isn't really my area of expertise so I may have misunderstood.
I don't think he's trying to put one over on me or anything -- I'm sure he wants this project done as soon as he can too. I just don't know if he's working with super-competent people or not; based on the work I've seen to date, it doesn't appear we're getting top-notch talent on the job. But that doesn't mean he's wrong.
The new guy he brought out didn't give an outright opinion on whether it would be feasible to leave the existing structure in place or not. He seemed to ask a few probing questions but it seemed he probably agreed with the PB. At the end he just told the builder, "Well, let me know what you want me to do and I'll give you an estimate."
The PB seems to be planning to take the existing structure down and rebuild it from scratch.