Rotten sill and rim joist

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CrestwoodCottage
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Rotten sill and rim joist

Post by CrestwoodCottage »

So we are building a new deck and pergola on the back of our house. We removed some wooden steps out the back door and found rotten OSB board behind them and decided we probably needed to remove and replaced before attaching our ledger board and found this....We've got a call into a carpenter to see if he can get out next week to repair but he's working on another job(a house I'm about to list for sale...so I of course can't complain and he also is the carpenter who worked on our house before we purchased it last winter) We're somewhat on a time crunch to try and get this built and were hoping this weekend we could knock out a good portion but now were at a stand still. The thought of fixing it freaks my husband out. Anyone have any suggestions if we were going to fix ourselves? Our contractor friend acted like it wasn't a big deal to fix and I know I've negotiated repairs like this in houses I've sold, so it doesn't seem that scary to me. It looks like someone has already replaced about 2' on either side of the corner and the wood is just damp, not rotten but beyond that one both sides is termite damage and the sill plate is rotten in the corner. Suggestions?
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matchbookhouse
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Re: Rotten sill and rim joist

Post by matchbookhouse »

Use either screw jacks or bottle jacks to support the house while you replace the bad lumber with same-size pieces of PT lumber. My rotted sill plate was 6X6 Douglas Fir that I figured I'd have to find salvaged lumber to replace, but they had 6X6 PT lumber in 8 ft. sections at Lowes. Thank heavens it fit in my van!

raine
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Re: Rotten sill and rim joist

Post by raine »

No expert here but the damage does not seem too bad. Since it is sunday when im writing this you probably got it figured out.
I would take this pic to home depot or menards type store and ask about products that stop rot that you paint on also address the termite problem .
The most important thing is to address the damp condition. Is that dirt ground just inches away from your wood ? If so I would lay pond liner in that corner and also direct the rain water away with sloping the landscape away from this area . Is there a gutter or stoop roof/canopy over the door ?

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CrestwoodCottage
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Location: Knoxville, TN

Re: Rotten sill and rim joist

Post by CrestwoodCottage »

Thanks for the advice. We ended up putting our project on hold until a contractor can come out and fix or we figure out how to fix ourselves. My husband goes back to work today through Thursday so we have a little more time to figure out what we are going to do. This was a brick patio that was built up with sand and the door has guttering above and had 2 steps up into the house(see photo.) We did find that the guttering buried under the patio was clogged up with leaves so we've cut off and redirected above the ground because it will go under our new deck. Our house was renovated by the previous owner about 8-10 months ago but after talking with a neighbor yesterday we found out the water issue happened several years ago by another previous owner....funny how your neighbors can know more about your house than you do! Apparently, there was an issue with a sagging gutter or something(house was rental for many years, so I'm sure it saw lots of deferred maintenance) and the issue was finally remedied after it had done quiet a bit of damage. The neighbor didn't seem surprised and said they probably put a band-aide on the damage, which it looks like they did. I suspect that's when the basement got a sump pump because we have lots of evidence of past water intrusion but haven't seen any water in the 5.5 months we've lived here and it's rained a ton this summer. All the water damage was obviously like a filet mignon to termites and they just munched away. We had a termite inspection a couple of months ago when we bought the house and there weren't any termites and very little old termite damage. The reason it's damp now is because the PO had changed the entrance to the kitchen and put in this door(it used to be where the window is coming out the back of the house) and they built stairs in the corner and water would just sit on the stairs and keep this corner saturated and didn't put any flashing behind them. I'm worried about putting something on it to stop the rot because 3/4 of the board is gone and the sill plate is just a pile of mush. I can stick a screw driver pretty well through the sill plate. On this particular area the sill plate isn't flashed, so I'm guessing that needs to be addressed or else if we have any more water at some point it's just going to wick up the water through the foundation. Since we are hanging the ledger board for the deck on the house and have cut out the siding we're going to properly flash the rim joist, etc. before attaching the board.
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