Siding, Flashing, Beams, and Elsa

A quick update on the blog emails. The service that sent out the emails after I post them to the blog has been discontinued. No problem. I’m switching to a different service. However, since I’m not quite sure of exactly how it’ll work for me to switch email services, I just want to give you a heads up in case you get extra emails or anything like that. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. Also, there were some followers that had unverified email addresses (they never clicked the confirmation link), so I’m not sure if they were receiving the emails previously. If they weren’t, they may start getting them now.

Good bye old window

We made some good progress on multiple fronts this week. As we’ll be starting the back bathroom gut and remodel soon, one of the first projects for that was to remove the old casement window. We’re going to be changing the layout of the bathroom and the window just wasn’t going to work anymore. So I removed the window, framed in the opening, added some felt paper, and installed new siding. I then installed the cornerboards. Oceana was right behind me with the primer. As soon as the last nail was shot, she was already priming the new boards. She got it primed, caulked, and painted.

Siding replacement

While we were at the siding repairs, I replaced two bad boards on the back side of the house. One board was broken from where someone had driven into the wall (many years ago). I got the new boards installed and Oceana got them primed and painted.

Front porch roof leaks

We’ve had quite a bit of rain recently. That rain showed me that the flashing work that Bob did on the front of the house when he redid the siding on the front gables wasn’t quite right. It leaked in multiple places. So I got up there to have a look and I was less than pleased with what I found. The more I looked at the work that had been done, the less pleased I was. To fix the problem at hand, I opted to pull off the bottom siding board on all three gables which would allow me access to the flashing where the roof meets the wall. With the flashing exposed, I was able to remove it and rework it so that it wouldn’t leak.

Replacing the new siding

When I removed the siding, I found that the siding was only installed with small trim nails and that there was no felt paper behind the siding, as I had requested. Felt paper is a waterproof barrier in case any water gets between the siding boards. If water finds its way through, it runs down the face of the felt paper until it hits the flashing and then back out to the roof. In that case, all of the siding needs to come off. Working one gable at a time, I removed the fascia boards that were improperly done, removed the siding, and then pulled all of the nails (or at least bent them over). With the framing exposed, I added felt paper and then recut and reinstalled the siding. Most of the original siding was re-usable. I had to recut the siding because I like to have a space between the bottom of the siding and the flashing. To get this gap between the siding and flashing, the siding needed to go up by almost 1″. Otherwise, if it’s tight, the siding that touches the flashing tends to hold moisture and rot out faster.

Two gables done

I was able to rework the siding on the north gable and the middle gable. It was hot up there. Yes, Florida summers are hot. But not like that, I’m used to that. I mean really hot. The metal roof was 152°! And to do the work on the siding, I had to be laying on my side, just soaking up the heat from the roof. I used a moving pad to insulate me from the roof but man, it was hot. One more gable to re-side and then it’s on to the fascia. This will have to wait for another dry day. I buttoned up just in time to get rained on. At least I could confirm that the flashing doesn’t leak anymore!

Back bedroom beams

Inside, we got the beams in the back bedroom fitted and installed. Oceana helped me get them dry fit and then she sanded them and applied two coats of finish. I got them installed and then hung the ceiling fan back up. They look great!

Hurricane Elsa

Hurricane Elsa passed by this week. Nothing exciting happened. We did get hit with one band early on that had sustained 30-40mph winds. It rained real hard along with the winds, which in turn showed me another roof leak. This time on the back bedroom. I got up on the ladder and did a quick temporary patch but I will need to do some proper flashing work later. Evidently the sideways rain found areas of missing flashing that normally don’t leak, but since the rain was going sideways instead of down, it came straight into the house. And I’m not talking about a drip, I’m talking about a stream running down the drywall inside.

In closing

For those wondering, Bob has been MIA for 2 weeks. I know he was having some health issues so maybe that’s the reason he’s been out. I haven’t heard from him. However, based on the work I saw on the porch, he stopped caring about the quality of work he was doing. Because of that, I’m not interested in having him do any more work here. It’s sad because he’s a better carpenter than this. That’s all for this week. More progress is planned for the coming week. As always, thanks for following along.