Eye Diy

After the rot

By Ryan Shervill September 11th, 2011

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Back to it.
So after the rot discovery yesterday, I decided to dig a little further and see how far the damage went.
Turns out that the rot was the result of a deck that once ran along that part of the house. Back in the 70’s, it was common practice here to just lag your ledger board to the house, and position your posts on cinderblocks, bricks, rocks….whatever was handy. These two decisions however can lead to the perfect storm for structural rot. Here’s why; Because the deck posts just sat on top of the ground (rather than on the poured footings we use today), seasonal freeze/thaw cycles would actually cause the posts to raise up (also known as “Frost heave”), and this causes the deck to tilt back towards the house….and where the deck tilts, the water goes. Add to this the fact that the ledger is tight to the house, and you can imagine what 30+ years of water pooling against the wall can do to your structure.
Anyway, it ended up making more sense to cut out the entire section that was faced with the original deck and start fresh. So my little door sized hole became a (slightly) larger one.

The rim joist, sil plate, and a few joists came out and were replaced with new lumber, and finally the first 18” or so of plywood subfloor replaced and screwed down.  With all that done is was time to fill the huge hole and frame for the new all vinyl slider window.

Wrap up the sheathing , install and foam in the window

And then it was time to clean up. This stage of construction always seems to take forever, and it can be frustrating to not see a bunch of progress at the end of each day, but it’s definitely worth taking the time to do it right and fix any problems that you discover rather than just being tempted to cover them up (Chances are at least some of the stuff you are dealing with is a result of some previous handyman doing exactly that.

Hitting the demolition home stretch! Tomorrow should see the flooring up, the dumpster full, and a clean slate to start with the fun stuff.

Ryan

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