Cockroach’s Cousins, Part 2

My routine and rhythm of life in the shop has been disrupted for the past three months due to travel, processing firewood, and running back and forth to work on the house with the termite damage.  (In fact I have not spent any quality time working in The Barn since early September)

The damage itself was both isolated and pretty straightforward to repair, but we decided it was time to replace the 35-year-old cedar shingle panel siding on the house.  Two loads were soon on-site, the trim lumber (I would salvage all the trim I could but bought enough that I could replace it all if needed) and a palate full of shingles.  Bought any premium cedar shingles lately?  I had not bought any for many years and the sticker shock was breathtaking.

When opening the exterior wall of the first encroachment I found what I expected.  Much to my delight the damage was confined to the area immediately under and adjacent to the one window.  The framing around that window was pretty much shot and the wood frame of the vinyl clad window was lightly riddled but still structurally sound (we were not so lucky with the window on the other side of the house).

I took out the window and executed my standard epoxy consolidation protocol, namely soaking the affected area with West System epoxy diluted 1:1 with acetone for greatest penetration, then following that up with straight epoxy, and finally, if needed, epoxy bulked with wood dust filler.

I removed all the affected materials and burned them out in the fire pit and began the reconstruction.  Needless to say everything was borated to the max, repeatedly.  Fortunately I was careful enough to leave the interior fabric intact, needing only to remove the trim around the window.  I would have been grieved to need to remove all the interior sheetrock.

But soon enough the repair in that area was completed and a carful check of the rest of the wall revealed only one area at the corner needing a little attention from a tiny smidge of rot, about the size of a golf ball right at the corner where the side wall and front wall met.  There was no structural compromise, but I still impregnated and filled the area.

Then it was off to the races with the new cedar shingle siding.

Stay tuned.