Structural beam and dry rot repair

Span and engineering, access, hidden rot, and permit fees set the cost, so the estimate is written for your repair. In Jon’s words: “Nobody has X-ray vision to diagnose. Sometimes it’s based upon discovery: you open something up and… this went deeper than I thought. Then you have to change-order that.” Nothing proceeds until you’ve signed that change order.

Yes. Replacing a load-bearing beam in El Dorado County requires a building permit and county inspections. A structural alteration changes how the house carries load, so the county verifies the work before it gets covered up. We’ll confirm who handles design, engineering and permits for your repair.

In homes, the 2025 California Residential Code: R304 (protection of wood against decay), R305 (termite protection), and R502/R802 (floor and roof framing); CBC Chapter 23 covers non-residential buildings. Homes built before 1978 also fall under the EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) rule when a repair disturbs painted surfaces. CCI Builders is EPA Lead-Safe Certified for exactly that work. Permits run through the El Dorado County Building Division.

Dry rot is soft and spongy, often with visible fungal growth; termite damage leaves hollowed galleries, mud tubes, or frass that looks like fine sawdust. A wood-destroying-organism (WDO) inspection from a licensed pest company confirms which one you have. CCI Builders repairs the structural damage either way, at the root, not as a patch. Jon on typical pest-company repairs: they “hack out little sections of whatever’s rotted… and piecemeal it in. They don’t find the root of the problem, which ends up costing more.”

Most structural damage is found one of three ways: a home-inspection or WDO (pest) report during a sale, a visibly sagging roofline or floor, or a contractor opening a wall mid-remodel. On a California pest report, Section 1 items are active damage or infestation, the repairs most home sales require corrected before close, while Section 2 items are conditions likely to lead to damage if left alone. If your report has Section 1 structural items, that is exactly the work this page describes.

Two clocks run on a beam job: permit-and-engineering lead time, then time on site. Both depend on the span, the access, and the county permit queue. The estimate gives you the schedule for your specific repair.

The load is carried the entire time. Temporary support walls go up before the old member comes out. Whether you can stay depends on where the beam is and how much of the house gets opened up. In Jon’s words: “Sometimes you have to vacate, or relocate to a different part of the house… it depends on the job.”

Usually not for gradual rot. Most homeowners policies treat slow decay as excluded maintenance. Sudden covered events are different: in Jon’s experience, coverage has come through “anytime there’s fire, flood, tree, snow load.” Read your policy and ask your carrier; we’re contractors, not insurance advisers, and this isn’t coverage advice.

We can’t assess a sag remotely. If it’s changing quickly or appeared after a storm, call (530) 905-5416 right away.

Section 1 items are the active damage and infestation a pest report says must be corrected. Most home sales require them repaired before close. CCI repairs the structural damage behind those items, the same dry rot and termite work described above, after the pest company treats.

Jon Saunders, the owner of CCI Builders, or a highly qualified member of his team runs the job, under CSLB license #835432, held since 2004. You get clear schedules and updates from one point of contact, clean jobsites with protection of property, and a 1-year workmanship warranty on the repair. More about Jon.

The region’s longtime beam-restoration specialists are stepping back, and CCI Builders carries that work forward in El Dorado County. That work still needs doing, and it’s the same engineered, permitted structural repair CCI has done from Placerville since 2004.