"wood rot"

Hi guys, inspection last week with a lot of wood rot at eaves, fascia ,soffits, and subflooring under bathrooms. Many moee areas as well. Could stick your finger through it kinda thing. Wrote up as replace rotted wood in specified areas. Simple enough i thought… Obvious. Did the reinspection yesterday and none of it was replaced! They did ,however, coat all of the rot with a chemical to harden it. Primed and painted it. Cetainly this is not an acceptable repair??? Thoughts? New blood learning a lot from u guys thanks

I’ve used wood hardener but only in prepping damaged wood for epoxy repair.
Sounds like a poor “fix”.
Did you probe it after this treatment?

I use epoxy filler to fill woodpecker holes, etc. But extensive rot, the trim board should be replaced, or at least the rotted section cut out and replaced and sealed.

Small repairs can be done with bondo, but large repairs are better with the wood being replaced. We use bondo for repairs were replacement isn’t practical/possible. It’s a judgement call. I would inform my client and let them decide. My wording would be unprofessional/nonstandard repair.

A lot of reinspections are like that. I don’t know how bad the rot was, but removing the soft wood hardening the area, and filling with an expoxy can be acceptable. It sounds like they only did half the work though and if it’s as bad as you are making it sound, it may just need to be replaced.

If it was “Could stick your finger through it kinda thing.” :shock: It needs replacing.

Is that what you wrote in your report?…stick your finger through kinda thing?

There is a proper process for repairing wood rot. It is usually done on difficult to replace wood such as sills, or a billeted abacus on top of a capitol. The idea is to remove all the punky wood first, then treat with epoxy such as what www.rotdoctor.com has on-line. This does harden it some and also kills the fungus in the wood. In your case, it sounds like they didn’t do this and they also should have used an approved wood filler after to re-build.

State what you saw. It looks like a professional repair or it doesn’t. They used a repair method that will not allow you to confirm it as a good repair. As has been pointed out already, chemical and resin treatments are usually used for wood components that are difficult to remove and replace. Eaves, fascia, soffits, and subfloor (once the finish floor is removed) are not very difficult to remove and replace. I haven’t seen it but it sounds like they should have followed your recommendations.

If the damaged wood is a structural item, like a floor joist, and the damage has compromised the strength then replace or repair should be recommended. The repair should restore the structural member to its original capacity (or better). I use a general rule of thumb of 10% section loss before I get too concerned. Keep in mind engineering design typically incorporates a safety factor where the design loading is greater than the actual loading and the material properties are reduced.

A non-structural item such as a door jamb or window sill is open for interpretation. If you rate a repair from 0 (nothing was done) to 10 (total replacement) and have several inspectors give an opinion on the workmanship all would likely agree a rating from 0 to 3 was crappy and all would likely agree a rating fro 8 to 10 was good. Its the gray area from 4 to 7 where opinions will vary among experienced inspectors. So in the gray area just state your opinion and I would include the word opinion, because another inspector may call it acceptable.

Do you guys use the word “rot” in your report? I use moisture damage as I always associated “rot” as a definate descriptor like “mold”

Rot is rot.

I have been schooled to not use any descriptive terms that would be considered to be in the WDO arena. I use “water damage” and “suspect microbial growth” in a home inspection report.

No, Rot is Dry Rot or Wet Rot. There is a difference. :wink:

Marcel is correct. And dry rot, usually, causes more damage.

http://www.buildingdoctor.com/wet_dry_rot/

Wood decay is caused by fungi that become active at about 20% moisture content. At moisture levels below that, decay stops. If wood is dry, it won’t rot.

I don’t think most of us can tell by looking at decay damage what kind of fungi caused it. I always thought dry rot was a bad term because it implies moisture isn’t necessary for wood to decay. I don’t think I’ve ever seen decay that wasn’t associated with elevated moisture levels.

Yea it was rotten beyond scope of filler. Called them out didnt even get argument. Replaced all rotted wood as recommended in initial report. Just amazed at the degree people go to in an effort to hide and conceal. I have grown to expect it lol. Thank u guys and all the input. Good stuff i will keep with me!