House Remediation

Hi,

Many of you know we have been going through about a 3-year mediation process with/vs our builder and his insurance companies to try and get a reasonable settlement for the remediation of our 10-year-old home.

To summarize, in 2003, because others in the neighborhood were experiencing water intrusion problems, we decided to have our home tested. We found moisture problems around and below our great room window. The builder "fixed" the problem, or so we thought.

In 2008, because others in the neighborhood continued to experience water intrusion problems, we decided to again have our home tested. We found moisture problems around and below our great room window (sound familiar?) This time we decided our recourse was to sue for damages. This turned out to be extended mediation.

In about April of this year we "settled" with the builder's insurance companies. In another life we can discuss how that all went!

After several weeks for discussions and interviews we selected a remediation contractor who last week began taking the stucco off the house.

Aside: Stucco has gotten a very bad reputation - at least in this market - as the cause of moisture intrusion problems. In fact, when windows are not installed properly and other building codes are not met, ANY cladding will be subject to moisture intrusion issues.

We will be removing all the stucco and brick trim, resetting all windows and doors (and will most likely have to replace the great room window plus a few suspect others), and replacing the stucco with a fiber cement siding product produced by Nichiha. There will be some stone around the front door, as a base for the pillars holding up the whatchamacallit over the front door, and on thegarage pillars.

With most of the stucco removed from the 'back' of the house, the side facing the golf course, we have not had any real surprises other than around the vent pipe for our boiler. It would appear the condensation caused by the tremendous heat difference between that pipe and the winter air has affected the sheathing (BILDRITE.)

I will publish some pictures and comments from time to time as this process progresses.

And, just to add to the confusion, we have decided to re-paint the entire upstairs of the house. When the window casings are removed (for window resetting) I will paint a roller width out from the rough opening. That way I can finish the wall without having to tape off the woodwork.

This is the back of the house as it looked prior to the stucco removal.

In this picture they have removed the stucco from the back of the garage and are putting up a plastic rain shield. They will do this on the whole house and it will stay in place until they re-set the windows and doors, and begin to put on the cladding.

This shows the area under the kitchen and 4 season porch.

Here is another view of the kitchen and porch. Stucco off, plastic not yet on.

Below is the great room window.

This is where it all started in 2003. The area below and to the left of this window is extremely wet which most likely means we will have to replace this window as well as the bedroom window below and to the left of it.

They are working on the master bedroom walls today.

We have hired an Engineer/House Inspector to be our eyes and ears on the project. He was here today and will return tomorrow morning when we will pull back the plastic at the bottom of the great room window. Depending upon....we may pull that window tomorrow, or at least set up a schedule for the work over the next couple of weeks. Because of the need to move the scaffolding (called Pump Jacks) to work on the front of the house, it could be we will "do" (reset windows, trim and side) the back of the house before pulling stucco/brick off the front.

To be continued.....