Just in from Home Renovation Bug Pete

Pete, the college roommate, checks in from Pasadena, California,
where he's renovating his home. He reports the following:


"I've been doing some demo work in the kitchen for the
past two days to use parts of the recycled lumber for
some work in the living room.

Chipping and removing the plaster and then the lathe.
It was going well, dusty and gritty.

The dining nook corner was last go and it served up
quite a revelation.

The walls in most of the kitchen had been hard and
springy, the wood pretty solid. The process had a
definite characteristic like the way a drum may feel if
you played it long enough. But in the nook, the walls
were soft and I could tear the plaster and the lathe
off with my gloved hands.

The underlying studs collapsed in handfuls and the
chunks were crawling with termites. It was like
pulling apart graham crackers. The area is also
covered with whitish, stringy patterns and fibers that
indicate a thriving dry-rot fungal infection.

I ripped out most of the affected wood until I started
hitting studs that were dry and unaffected. I started
to tear down the connecting ceiling section before
deciding to leave it for later. It doesn't look like
it's suffered water problems recently. Some time
ago, a repair job ripped down the old plaster and
installed sheetrock over the damaged lathe on the
ceiling. But without repairing the roof in this area,
the new work suffered the same fate as the original
material. Looks like there has been water leaking in
this area for decades, the recent new-roof job fixed
some of the water problem.

But the studs that crumbled in my hands today were
slightly moist, suggesting they're still suffering
water problems probably from the recent rains.

The tar paper that's on the underside on the stucco is
readily accessible to me here and in parts it's
crumbling away or missing outright. There's also a
downspout mounted directly outside this area. Holes
have been drilled to mount the downspout. There's also a bracket in this
area that strings the two power lines to the garage
from this corner of the house. This morning we had
some rain and I was able to see water trickling in
through some of these mounting holes. The pattern
looks like it's been going on since Eisenhower, maybe
Kennedy. The tar paper around the downspout area is
long gone. But the recent roof patch area looks like
it's never been wet.

I have no studs in this corner of the house now. I'll
have to rig up something temporarily. Hope there are
no earthquakes for the immediate future.

I'm also going to have to treat the fungus. I've read
that boric acid and propylene glycol are the best
treatments and you can mix 'em yourself.

My termite guys are coming next week to do an exterior
rod treatment around the house perimeter like they were
supposed to do according to my own hired termite
inspector's prescription. This newly discovered damage
isn't directly related to them and their deficient
pre-sale inspection as it looks like this damage has
been going on for years/decades. And this was
happening behind walls that they couldn't access.

I took lots of pictures, I'll have to sit down and
organize the gallery soon.

I keep saying "dammit dammit dammit" and then canceling
the sentiment by saying "old house, you knew it and
this comes with the territory, find your zen, bitch."

Adios,
Pierre"