Not Pretty

Since we bought the house, I've known that the soffit was rotted out underneath the valley where the garage is attached.

I haven't been able to address it because of the very steep slope and rough terrain that was beneath that area. Since the deck has been extended out over that tough terrain it is now much easier to work on the eaves there.

Today I got started demolishing the rotted out sections. The gutter had to be taken down and it's the main reason for the problem as well.

The fascia is toast, and a lot of the soffit has to be replaced. Some of the rafter tails are in bad shape and need replacing. But the rafters are okay and the decking is in good shape.

It's not in too bad a condition. They went to great lengths to hide the damage which was mostly the fascia. It would have been as a simple or even easier fix to just have done it right.

It's what I've come to expect though. I've found lots of shoddy work throughout this house that could have been just as easily done correctly. It's laziness. Cutting corners never saves any money, in the long run.

On the upside, I will be able to add another couple of inches of rigid foam insulation before I button everything back up. This will add some significant R value to an otherwise weak point in the wall system that I could not reach from the interior.

The air sealing that I did last year was visible after removing the soffit and it was a good job. I didn't see any voids or crevices that air could be moving through, I'm happy to report.

Being able to seal and insulate from the exterior will be a bonus that I didn't think about until I had the eave demo'd.

Six degrees of cold...

This is what happens when it gets down to six degrees. This is ice on the inside of a window in the house. This window does not have storm windows on it and the condensation froze. I had to get a hair dryer to thaw it out.

This is an original window and it will be replaced by a door. Extreme cold is uncomfortable but it reveals the thermal weaknesses of a structure better than anything else. I knew this window was a weak point but I didn't realize the extent.

Storm windows work because they keep the exterior cold or heat away from the single pane glass. Condensation will always form where hot meets cold. Where condensation occurs that is below freezing ice will form. There should be an entire chapter in the book on inefficiency devoted to this.

I found several other places throughout the house that had ice on the glass that morning. Mainly where the storm window had been left in an open position.

I left the hose bibbs dripping the night before and icicles had formed on the spigots.

When I rode around the next day there was sign of burst pipes everywhere around town. Home Depot's watering system in the garden center burst. A major metropolitan hospital that my wife works at had a pipe burst which flooded a recovery room.

This is an infrared reading on the window pane. It's around 63 degrees inside the house.

The neighbors reported that one of the houses nearby had water running out of it and icicles were seen emanating from the front door. I tried working outside and only lasted about 15 minutes. At noon it had risen to 12 degrees. If it never gets that cold again it will be too soon!

Today I was wearing a t-shirt...

Problems

There is a hole in the eave and the wood is rotted. It seems to have been getting wet for sometime. They painted over it and hid it pretty well, but that section of the soffit has to be replaced. Good times.