How to Identify and Repair Rotting Wood | Ask This Old House

[Music] oh no tommy is your doll house rotting what's going on no actually the dollhouse is not rotting because it's flashed correctly it's the only house that's not subject to rot right right exactly so you got to look out for different things you could have a fascia board that's rotted because the overhang of the shingles aren't correct little things like that you have to work out for so the first thing to be thinking about is prevention you want to get the water away from the house as much as possible you're less likely to get rot right not having wood too close to the bottom or the ground is important also but as we all know no matter what we do we always end up with some type of rot right from various reasons and usually it starts with signs like this all right so this could be a board that that ran across the bottom of a house it could be a fascia board behind the gutter but if you notice you have peeling paint yeah and that sign that peeling paint is usually because there's water getting behind the wood right and when the sun comes out it wants to dry the wood but it pulls the moisture with it and the moisture gets behind the paint and flakes it off the board it's literally pushing from behind and kind of blowing the paint off of the surface yep that's why back priming wood is very important okay so if that's a telltale sign this is certainly a telltale sign too right it starts to literally just get punky and it starts to just go away yeah right if you look at these holes right there these are actually caused by carpenter ants and carpenter ants will form when the wood is wet or damp and the conditions are right because they like to nest in the wood carpenter ants will take the wood and move it out of the way to make room for their nest termites will eat the wood gotcha okay so we have to think about prevention if we do end up getting rot like this um obviously you could just tear it out throw it away and replace it but yeah i mean it's not always easy like i just had some rod on some window sills and i was like i'm not taking these window sills out yeah i mean the corners down here is where you're going to usually see a rod and that usually is a flashing up here the water runs down right maybe the siding where it meets the trim like for example the water migrates through there and it comes down and collects inside and rots that right and to take that out is a big work it was way more work than just fixing it in place which i decided to do so let's talk about fixing it in place so you can fix it in place but the first thing you want to do is you want to try to remove as much of the rot that you can and leaving it so you end up with some substance to the wood you called it punky before but you can see you know some of this stuff literally would just come off with your finger yeah but if you notice the more you remove it starts to feel better it's just a better feel to the wood but again you're not going to remove it all right so a little harder in the center right there right so scrape it away scrape it away clean it away sand it away whatever you need to do and make sure it's then clean gotcha all right and then you can prime the wood i prepped the wood with this product right here and this is a two-part product actually should i say three product the first stage and then the second stage so the first stage here this is called a restorer and uh if i open this up so a clear liquid a lot of solvent in right that comes with a brush yeah and so you want to put you want to brush on about four to six coats of that and you want to wait about two minutes between each time for it to set up and then that will go into the fibers of the damaged part and get to the good part and harden the soft wood because you want to make sure that you are actually down the hard wood and if it's a little soft harden up with this the restorer exactly so the wood basically it's prep work it's like if you're painting a wall if you don't prep it right the paint's not going to hold up so you want to remove all the loose debris to get down nice and clean right here so it looks like you sanded this in this is sort of the dirty and you sanded this in dug it out put the restorer in there it's set up now what do we do right well then there's a filler that you can use this is a formula that is for wood and there's other companies that make it too i mean i use one that is basically the same process so i have to put the primer in there first wait a few times wait a few minutes for it to set up and then you put the filler into that so you said this is a two-parter this is a two-part the first part is you want to lay a piece down like this about a three-inch circle gotcha and this one here this tube says cream hardener so that's pretty self-explanatory right so now what you want to do is you also you don't want to use more hardener than required you're better off using just slightly less than more so let's say that's about a three inch circle it's about half an inch thick take some of this and you just run a strip across right across like like that again not too thick all right and then you just fold it into the mix it's pretty interesting that they give you a different color hardener so that you can kind of see this the difference in the two yeah so you can see the color how it starts to change and that way you'll get it all through it so you want to make sure it's mixed thoroughly gotcha what are you mixing that's not wood is that is that a pvc this is a piece of pvc you can use a piece of glass anything that's non-porous because you don't want to take the chemicals out of the mix so i presume that you can make more or less so long as the ratio is the same if you don't do a three inch circle half inch thick you could do a two inch circle and then when you put this bead across it it's just going to be a smaller yeah exactly and i would also suggest don't mix up too much at once right because you don't want to lose it i mean you've got some time but you'd be surprised especially if you're doing it in the hot sun it will set up quick okay so how we look in there i think we got it mixed pretty good the color looks even this is not a clean work surface but i'll give you a little something right there looks like your hardware is only on this little spot right there right so you just you just take it and you force it into the wood work it around i've mixed up obviously i've mixed up too much but i did that first to show you how you do it ratio and stuff so i'm going to work it in all right make sure it's in there nice get any bubbles out of there and see that little bubble right there yep i do get right down in there all right so now that it's in there i'll take another knife putty knife and i'll drag it across oh yeah make it nice and flat you gotta fill that void in you it's like it's almost like putting a joint compound on drywall right you know you put it on you want to have a little extra to sand it off yeah cause this is gonna you're gonna sand over this once it's dry yeah before you paint it right yep and then uh is this like a one-hour setup eight hour setup you're coming back the next day generally no you should be able to do it uh in a few a couple of hours but again if it's if you're doing it in the hot sun it'll set up even faster than it will in the cool weather so a couple imperfections but as you say as long as it's high you'll be able to sand it down and i also went much i went larger than the area that was pre-treated so that should bond well and all this will sand down and the patch will be smaller and we'll have a good fix and uh it's going to be a good fix for something up on a second story we don't want to take out the whole cell exactly again you want to make sure that the the joints are cocked nice and tight like they should be when you do at the end of the seasons and you want to check your flashing to make sure that's right gotcha all right tommy thank you all right my pleasure it's always good to see your dollhouse again thanks for watching this whole house has got a video for just about every home improvement project so be sure to check out the others and if you like what you see click on the subscribe button to make sure that you get our newest videos right in your feed

Channel: This Old House

Views: 145,135

Keywords: This Old House, DIY, Construction, Home Improvement, Ask This Old House, Building, Tom Silva, Kevin O'Connor, woodworking, wood, rot, repair

Id: Lkb1c-1AaZA

Length: 7min 43sec (463 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 09 2022