Soffit Up-date

Hello again everyone!

Thought I'd take a quick moment to give you an update I should have done last night.

If you remember from the last post I mentioned we had ran into a bit of a problem on the west side. It's one of those problems I wish we would've known about when we first started work on that side.

Basically...the outer edge of the roof is rotted.

Our roof was built a bit different than modern roofs are. Most roof edges are made up of rafter edges, battens, purlins, eaves, barge board, etc.

Our roof edge has all of this with a couple of extras. Along with the typical battens, the boards that tie the rafters together, we have two battens stacked on top of each other right on the top edge. Also, most homes have an eave attached to the end of the rafters on non-gable ends. This is whats also know as the 'trim' if I understand it correctly.

Anyway, our house has a 2x6 tying the rafter ends together with all the extra boards attached to it. By-the-way, the rafters are also 2x6s.

All tied together this makes for an extremely strong roof edge that is uncommon today - just take a look at modern roof construction and you will see.

Unfortunately termites got to parts of the 2x6 that tied all the rafters together. On top of this wood-rot also set in.

Needless to say, it had to be removed. We are lucky though, it could have been a lot worse!

Following are some of the pictures that will kind of give you an idea just how bad it was.

This is the south west corner.

It amazes me how rotten the west board is yet the south board is in great condition.


In case you're wondering - that is wire mesh screen at the top portion of the corner. We think it was put there to keep squirrels, and other creatures, out. I don't think it helped much, I found nut remains all over.

Nasty looking ain't it?!











Even some of the original shake shingles were deteriorated.

Fortunately the double layer of 1x6 battens were only affected on the outer inch. The stability of the structure is still in excellent condition. With such a small amount of the battens being affected we will not need to replace them at this time. To do this it would require the removal of the roofing down to the rafters.

Eventually this will be done but it won't be for several years. With this future repair in mind we will be making the immediate, necessary repairs in a way that will not hinder the future repairs.

This is a close-up of the same spot.

The entire length was not this bad but bad enough to warrant complete removal of most of it.

A section further north.










As you can see, the ends of the rafters, with very few exceptions, are in excellent shape. Those that were affected only had damage in the area where the lowest tip/edge of the rafter met the edging board.

I'll get more pictures of this when I make the repairs.

Before I forget... You might have noticed that a length of the bead-board is missing. This section will also need to be replaced due to rot.

This is the north west corner.

The main board here is in excellent condition, just dirty. I decided to leave it alone - no sense in replacing something that doesn't need it.

Now this is what boggles the mind...

Remember in the first picture where the west board was rotten but the south board was perfect? At this corner the west board is perfect and the north board is rotten!! Isn't that just weird?

While we are on this picture you might have noticed the boards laying across the top of the scaffolding. These are part of the eave trim that are still in good condition and can be used. This will save in the cost of replacement.

Basically, to accomplish this task I had to remove all the main nails (about 5" in length). The board was so bad some of these could be removed by hand. I then had to cut the board, using the Sawzall, into manageable lengths and then pry them from the two batten boards tied into it. There were spots that were so rotten that as soon as a chunk was cut it just fell off. Lucky for me these pieces were rotten enough they didn't cause damage when they hit my head!

Once this was finished the nails that were sticking out had to be cut-off so that the replacement boards can be installed.

The whole process took most of the day. It would have gone faster if I didn't have to climb down from the scaffolding to move it over another 4'. I won't even mention the nasty mess.

Here's something else that amazes me... I'm using modern tools and safety devices/conveniences, such as the scaffolding. The original boards are solid 2x6s 16' long. These puppies were extremely heavy! How in the world did the manhandle these things in place back then?!?!

Anyway, moving on...

As you know, we're still scraping the soffits on the east side. They are finished for the most part but we ran into a rather interesting problem here as well.

Do you have any idea what this hole is for?

This is where the original downspout for the internal gutters came out on this section of the house.

It isn't going to be too big of a problem fixing this; the hardest part is going to be matching the moulding. This style of moulding is still made, but I think it is about 2/3rds the size of the original. To get the mouldings to match might be tricky. I'll keep you up-dated.

That's about it for now. I need to go take some measurements for a run to the lumber yard.

Till next time...

Cheers!
Larry

Blast from the Past #6

Well, since one 'Blast from the Past' post got done today I might as well do another one.

This time I'll do the roof. This was the first major thing we did to the house itself that was noticeable. We had a steady stream of looky-lous drive by the entire time.

The roof's shingles were replaced in early Spring of 2005.

Here all the shingles on the porch rook are gone and the new tar-paper has been laid. The roofers have also stated to remove shingles from the main roof.

This was the end of day 1.

I was trying to get a better picture of the main roof. I don't think it came out too well.




Day 2.

All the shingles are off of the south half of the roof and the original shake shingles have been exposed.

We had the option to replace these and put down a new deck, but the shake shingles were still in great shape and they are better, from an insulation view point, than a new deck.

However...at one point the roofers did start removing the shakes. They had removed an entire section from the north east side before the foreman caught it. They replaced them.

Now, you might be wondering why the foreman wasn't there when it happened. Simple - he was at our little Victorian cottage supervising that crew as well. I'll talk about that later.

Just another view of the same spot.

On day 3 they started to do the shingles on the north side.



This was at lunch time on the 3rd day.









There are just a small amount of shingles left on the west side and a tiny amount on the north east side.



By the beginning of the 4th day they had reached this point.


















This is how far they had gotten on the 4th day.

As you can see there is just a little lift on the west facing dormer and, IIRC, about half the wraparound porch was left.

On the fifth day they completed the house and completed the garage.






Okay, now let's get back to the our little Victorian cottage as I pull out my soap box.

The roof on the little house was started the same day as the big house. The roof on the little house was smaller than the big one, but the roof was a bit more complicated.

The work crew on the big house was composed of nothing but Hispanic guys. I really have no problem with this, but I did wonder if they were all 'legal' even though the company assured us all their workers were 'legal'. Also, the leader of the crew was the only one who could speak English enough that we could understand each other.

The crew on the little house were all white.

Now keep all of this in mind.

During the entire time the crew was working on the big house they were humping their rumbs and constantly busy. Due to the way the house sits, as well as the trees around it, they were not able to use a shingle lift to get the bundles up there. They had to move each shingle bundle up by hand.

They were also VERY polite and courteous. At the end of the day they made sure the yard around the house was cleaned up and they also made sure all the plants around the house were not harmed - no small feat when roofing. They bent over backwards to be perfect workers!!!

However, over at the little house the entire white crew loafed around and never seemed to get anything done. Every time I drove by they were just sitting there like a bunch of monkeys in a tree!! We also had damage to several plants around the house. On top of this the foreman was always having to go on them to make sure they were working. As for being polite and courteous...well, let's just say they looked like the rejects from the local prison. I would NOT have let SWMBO go over there by herself.

It really said something in that during two of the 5 days the big house was getting worked on the foreman didn't even bother to come by. Get this, the little house took three days longer to finish!

Now - don't get me wrong, I'm not praising illegal emigrant workers (especially since we were told they were legal) but I will give the Hispanic guys credit, they worked their butts off!

Well, till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~