As part of the Casa de Cowboy rebuild we need to replace this SED pole, which will have a concrete block wall running approximately where the line of poles behind it is, perhaps set back a bit (it's a bit hard to tell from the plans):

 

 

 

 

Problem is that there's a huge wisteria growing around it that covers the front of the house, and that 100% of people surveyed said we should definitely preserve, i.e. it's not just Mrs.Neb and myself obsessing over it. It shades the bedrooms at the front of the house all summer and is a major part of the house, so we definitely don't want to lose it.

 

 

The post is holding up this:

 

 

 

 

Ignore the second, lower beam, that was from the Deck de Cowboy and will be removed later on.

 

 

The builder's suggestion was: Leave the existing SED pile in place, to address the point load on the drain try and install two spiral cages 450mm dia hole but move them away 800mm away from the corner. This way we address the point load, the tree roots and I don't have to remove the existing SED.

 

 

I've asked for clarification on how that's going to look, I assume it means putting a pile cage to one side of the SED to take the load.

 

 

Moving the walls back is an alternative but will create a large number of difficulties in terms of changing the floor layout, re-engineering, and cost, so it's not high on the list of options.

 

 

Anyway, I thought I'd throw it out here in case anyone has any ideas for other ways of dealing with it.