Last weekend's fun - waterproofing and deconstruction

In my last post I mentioned we uncovered a water leak and some rotted wood during our demo of the laundry area and kitchenette. Since this is only one of the many problems we discovered we are going to TRY to tackle one problem at a time!

So here’s the skinny on the leak and rotted wood issue. At some point the exterior wall in the back right corner of our house was exposed to water and then housed some termites. The wood in this area literally crumples if you touch it. Obviously this isn’t really a quality you want when it comes to the structural integrity of your home.

We also have a carport attached to the house and for whatever reason; poor design, poor construction, ground settling, whatever…the carport slopes towards the house and not away from the house. This leads to water pooling up against the house and creating more water problems.

So how do you fix these problems? If I weren’t married to the world’s most efficient handyman I would say call a contractor and kiss your savings goodbye! But luckily for me, my husband can fix and/or over engineer almost anything.  So two trips to Home Depot and $200 later we were ready to go! 

All our supplies...and yes all our supplies are sitting on an old cabinet

So here’s the play by play:

1.  We tore down the aluminum siding and scarce moisture guard/waterproofing

  

2.  Once we could see the exterior boards from the outside of the house we took each board down starting from where the carport is attached to the house. It’s about 4 boards and each board is approximately 8 inches. So we deconstructed about 2.5-3 feet of our kitchenette/laundry room wall.

3.  Once we had the boards removed we cut off the rotten parts and salvaged what we could and nailed them back to the studs.

4.  Replaced the rotten portions with new boards and reinforced the old studs with new ones.

5.  Applied flashing to help direct water towards the gutters and hopefully prevent water from pooling near the house.

6.  Installed asphalt felt as a moisture guard and waterproofing solution.

7. Painted on roof cement to hold the flashing and felt in place and prevent water from getting between the moisture guard and the exterior wall.

8.  Reinforced cement with fiberglass roofing mesh and added another layer of roofing cement.

About 9 hours later we still have two steps left:

9. Fill in any gaps with Great Stuff foam.

10. Install a drain on top of the carport to ensure all water runs to either the gutters or off the carport. I’m sure this step will subsequently lead to another project but since we haven’t quite figured out what type of drain we are installing I’m going to remain hopeful that it can just be a step in this project and not a new one entirely. (Famous last words, I know!)

We could have finished the entire project if we owned a nail gun! Seriously, I think we spent at least 3 hours of the afternoon hammering nails into 2x4s. My arms are jello! Although I’ve learned the value of a good old school hammer – don’t buy the cheap ones they require so much more energy. You may think I’m crazy but trust me then you’ve been hammering nails into boards for 2.5 hours you’re going to appreciate expending the least amount of energy as possible.  

Now that the exterior of our house is adequately waterproofed we need install exterior siding. I’m beginning to learn that every project spins off into another; it’s like the domino effect. While all these projects are totally overwhelming to think about as a whole, I feel so accomplished after we work on our house!