Up a certain creek

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topher5150

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A little background. We bought a late 40s house with cedar siding in the fall of 2016. Well I noticed that at the bottom of the siding the 1"x 8" at the bottom was pretty rotted so I pulled it off only to find significant dry rot behind it. There is 3' wide by about 2' tall section where everything above the sill plate has some nasty dry rot. Is this something I could section out and repair or am I S.O.L.?
I'll try and get some pics tomorrow
 
It's seems about .125-.25 is rotted and bring it seems ok. I'm preparing for the worst and hoping for the best
 
A few years ago while working on a church we found the outside half of a 2x6 wall was completely gone behind the siding. We were working off the roof and the inside of the wall was 25 ft high over a staircase.We managed to save some wall complete with the drywall on the inside and replace the outside of the wall. So much can be done.
 
Here's a pic
You can see on the sill plate I scraped some of the rotted stuff off, and I don't think it was much more than an 1/8"-1/4" deep. The area with the insulation is supposed to be some 1"x 6"(?)

12341.jpg
 
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It's not very clear. but what we should be seeing is something like sill plate, rim joist, floor plywood, bottom wall plate and studs.Normally we have sheeting covering the wall parts.
Do you have access to the basement or crawlspace to see it from the inside?
 
here is the side of the house. The area in question is by the snow shovel

side of house.jpg
 
Good we are only dealing with the weight of the wall and a little bit of the floor.
You said the crawlspace was ugly, how much room is under there (height) is there plastic on the dirt?

Inspect the bad wood with an awl, ice pick or sharp screw driver. Stab good wood to see what it should be like and then stab the bad wood and see how deep it will stab. See how big the area is and which parts are effected.
 
Not sure if I'll be able to get to that tonight, but I it's just the outside surface what does that tell me?
 
Not sure if I'll be able to get to that tonight, but I it's just the outside surface what does that tell me?

If it is just a fraction of an inch deep, you get away with scraping away all the infected loose stuff, treat it with a copper product to kill anything left and cover it up. That is what we are hoping for.

But if the crawlspace has no plastic over the dirt. This would be the time to deal with that as there is a cheat to get it in there while you have this side open. Just saying.

The fear is a wet crawlspace with no air circulation the problem could be started from the inside and working it's way out.
 
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No plastic in the crawl spaces. I will try and crawl my butt in there today....I just wish they put it a better spot, it's a hole in the wall at the bottom of the stairs, in the basement, but almost level with top of the stairs.
 
A couple questions
1: between the 1" x 8" at the bottom and the bottom rite of the siding there is about a 1" piece of the wood. Could that be a 1" squat piece of wood?
2: the black plastic behind the siding, could I tape up some similar plastic to cover up the exposed wood?
3: there is some gaps between the boards on the wall pictured, would I be ok to caulk the gaps?

IMG_20170506_160623179.jpg
 
I think what you are saying is 1" is actually 1 1/2" and we would call that a 2 x 8
Not sure what you mean for squat but generally, what ever works id good.

The plastic should not be plastic. It should be a tar paper or house wrap and the house wrap breaths.
If you can sneak the new behind the old as much as you can and tape the seams with red "tuck" tape
 

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