House Repair Project

Woo Hoo! I got my new table saw yesterday! It is a 10” Hitachi C10FL, and it is much, much better than my old Craftsman. It weighs about 260 pounds, it is very solid, it has a large work surface, and it is extremely quiet. There were some assembly issues (extremely unclear documentation and poorly threaded bolt holes) but they were minor. No real problems (yet).

Of the five projects I had in my queue the House Repair one was the most important to complete as soon as possible. It turns out the house had old (say 10 years or so) termite damage that affected a small section of my garage. Although the critters had long since vacated the area, the weakened wood siding absorbed rainwater from the too-close wind-blown hedges that scraped up against the normally sealed wood surfaces. This helped to start the rot on its way.

Since this area was in a hidden part of the front of the house it went unnoticed for a while. It wasn't until we hired a crew to re-seal the entire place (we need to do this every 4 or 5 years or so) was the soft wood discovered.

At this point, I would love nothing more than to rail against the people that sealed our house, but I am going to save that for a really long, probably unhealthy, profanity saturated, and booze-fueled “manifesto-esque” post. It suffices to say that 1) I originally had no intention of doing this repair work myself 2) they did a terrible, overpriced job sealing the house and charged us an additional 20% for work they should have covered already and 3) my phone conversation with their salesman ended with me saying “Congratulations. The Golden Goose has finally run out of eggs. I am doing the remaining work myself.”

I called around to the various suppliers of the wood siding, stain, sealant, and chinking and found out how much supplies would cost with shipping. Since I knew that the people that did the house sealing job were one of the closest official vendors of the materials I needed it was worth my time to call them and order through them. Sigh.

I was less than shocked the hear them once again try to rip us off by claiming it costs $100 in gas to drive a Ford Ranger 125 miles to deliver the materials (the salesman said the delivery fee would be “just gas one way” from where they were). So, finally, my materials were delivered two Wednesdays ago (during the big storm). Well, they were stacked in my driveway in the pouring rain, a couple yards from the covered porch. Nice.

I brought the stuff into the garage and toweled everything off the best I could. I stacked the new wood siding so it would dry out for a couple of days without warping.

After the insect inspector came and pronounced the work site wood-eating-critter-free, the next day (Last Sunday) I started digging into the obvious spots of rotted wood. Initially, large chunks came out freely but it quickly became clear the rot was not as extensive as I had feared. All in all, four pieces of siding were affected. Three of them were damaged in areas about 13” wide but the bottom-most piece had a little less than four feet that needed to be replaced. Thousands of benign ants made their home in the bottom piece thanks to the vacated termite tunnels there. Spraying as I went, they died off quickly.

As darkness threatened, I needed to stop in the middle of the wood-removal process and cover the exposed areas in aluminum flashing. It wouldn't be insect-proof but at least it would keep most of the elements out of the exposed areas until I could get back to work this weekend.

A rotary saw and wood chisels were a great help in cleaning up the still-solid bits of wood left from the wood-removal process. I further smoothed out the damaged areas using a drum sander attachment on my cordless drill.

The new table saw cut the new siding like a dream. To be fair, the old Craftsman table saw also cut wood like a dream, but it was the kind of dream where you wake up in a cold sweat repeatedly counting your fingers and limbs to make sure they are all there. Also, you get out of bed to peek into the garage just to make sure the saw is exactly where you left it...

Anyway, I hammered the new pieces into place and chinked the gaps closed. Everything fit perfectly. Sweet. Time for staining.

I was assured by the aforementioned vendors that the stain and sealant were an exact match to the existing siding. Um. No. Not even close. Well, at least the unmarked 1-gallon can of stain they delivered is lighter than the old stuff, not darker, so I can work with it to gradually match the new stuff to the rest of the house. Maybe the stain gets darker as it soaks in. I'm not really worried about it - I am basically done. I spent $200 on materials (and delivery) and I can spend as much time on the job to get it as exactly perfect as I want.

I have never done anything like this job before but I am glad I did it myself. The scumbag contractors wanted $1,000 to repair the area. Even if you add in the cost of the table saw I am still ahead of the game. I didn't have to take time off work, I got to see the type of damage first-hand, I have a lot of left-over material, and I know what to look for in case I need to do this again.

To those of you out there facing similar challenges but are leery of jumping in yourself my advice is just give it a go. I mean, obviously, there are certain things that you might want to get an expert for (electrical stuff, plumbing stuff, and other dangerous or house-critical items) but embrace the opportunity to teach yourself a new skill. If you screw it up, you screw it up – it is not the end of the world.

And who knows? You might surprise yourself and do it exactly right, and that, my friends, is an awesome feeling.