Fixit Man - Damn this dude is slooow

So as I mentioned some time ago...I have a small rot issue on my aged house. So here I am 3 weeks later and I am still not done.

Why? Because I am an amateur. Oh I know I have bitched extensively about the amateur work already done on the house. The difference with me is that I know amateur work and take extra time and effort to do the work right, even if it does take a lot longer and cost more money. That's the difference between a good amateur and a bad one. I know I am unskilled, But I also know where to find information, what questions to ask and am more than willing to undo a lot of effort to do something right rather than "make do"

What started this mess is that, once again, a small project became a large one. There is a Utility Room addition just off the kitchen. Off that is a patio with lattice, climbing plants and plastic roofing. A nice cool spot to hang out. Unfortunately the job was originally done very poorly and it is on the north side of the house. This means wet. A lot of wet. And that the patio roof was poorly jointed to the building, with little slope and not enough support for the plastic roof....well that meant a flood every time it rained heavily. Like we never see much rain around here. So as I dug into the project, I discovered that the whole utility room wasll had been infested with moisture ants. Termites without the rep. So I have ended up having to replace an entire wall instead of just the patio.

Speaking of cost...So far I have spent a thousand bucks on materials. I figure it will be 1500 by the time I am done. When I moaned to the lumber dude about it, also said that it would cost double to have someone else do it. He smirked "Double? If you are lucky it would only be double" Geesh.

I know I have made some mistakes that lead to extra work. The siding for instance; this is taking the longest time by far. Why? Well I installed the windows. Now I have to cut and fit the siding to fit. What I should have done is to fit the windows, then remove them. Put up the sheets of siding right over the hole and then cut out the window framing. Oh well. it just means a lot of extra time spent carefully cutting and fitting the pieces and some extra seams to seal.

So here are some pics.
First, I present the damage.

This is the main nest that the moisture ants had built And a good indicator of where the worst of the water intrusion was.












And here is a nice shot of the main nest. yummy.














Yup. They had gotten all the way up into the header. And this is halfway down the wall from the nest. Not good. Fortunately, the nest had already been killed. I found a few stragglers. Terminix took care of those. But the nest is vacant. The wood framing all through the wall was like paper mache.

By the way...yes that is newspaper stuffed up into the eaves. WTF? The papers are dated November, 1972. So I'm thinking someone read in the Mother Earth News that newspaper is a great insulator and went with it. nice to know my house is keeping warm in just the same way a homeless man does it.



After stripping away the siding, this is what it looked like. From that vent pipe all the way to the corner, the bottom 5 inches of vertical framers were dust. Gone. Just hanging there. The sole plate along the bottom was literally planting mulch. The bottom corner of the nearest window could be swung in and out by about 6 inches once the siding was removed. One of the contributing factors in the problem is that one of the concrete slabs has sunk a bit. So water would collect in the corner where the nest was built. I am going to fix that by drilling some drain holes and making a gutter to carry the water away.

I started framing up the wall. First I have to brace and slightly lift the roof so that I could get new headers, sole plate and studs into place.
I had hoped to leave the windows in place and just replace rotted studs and such. But later I ended up having to remove the windows. It was just too had to keep everything in place.










Once the framing was finished, I then painted it with a copper napthene mixture that prevents rot and kills bugs that try to eat the wood. Heh. Funky smell. And it took a couple washings with soapy water to get the smell to clear up.




Another lovely discovery was the...er..creative wiring in the wall. We had always had one switch and one outlet that never worked. I found out why. They werent connected to the panel. *sigh*. I cleaned things up. Got the outside outlet working and removed the dead wires. I still have to sort out the outside lighting. I have a nice outside fixture and I will move the motion sensor floodlight to the outside of the patio. But they will have to be on the same circuit. So if the patio light is on, the motion detector is working. I am also using solar charged lights to do some indirect lighting in the patio.



Now I am finally getting the siding in place. As I said, I should have removed the windows and then cut out the holes. But I figured that out halfway through and despite the extra effort it is going together well. Yeah, that is a funky color. That is the primer and sealer. I'll be painting it a nice white when I am done.

I should have the siding and lighting all done today. And tomorrow the trim goes up.

Then there is the interior sheetrock and insulation. After that, I will finally get to do the original project: replacing the patio cover.

This is really cutting into my bike riding, you know.