house – Ephemerality

I can’t find a post about this, other than a brief mention elsewhere, but at one point I updated the back door with a modern lock and security film on its window. The frame, having degraded with time, was barely holding the door in place. I corrected the problem temporarily with hardware reinforcements. It worked for the foreseeable future.

Then I got COVID and Liz used my compromised mental state to convince me that the door itself needed replacing, after she tried and failed to strip it of paint for a fresh coat. An indifferent and barely conscious self agreed.

The back door, before I ripped out those ugly curtains.

To be fair, the steel cladding on the bottom of the door had recently warped and was catching. The seal around the frame itself had long since cracked and fallen out. There was definite water intrusion damage, but with so many priorities on a house’s upkeep, the door had remained as deferred maintenance.

So when my bout of COVID finally broke, we acquired a replacement door. It remained in the garage for a week on sawhorses while Liz applied goofy bee-themed designs. I will note at this point that we bought a pre-hung door, not because the included hardware is ever top-notch, but because I had learned the hard way that doors and frames shrink and warp at the same rate, and it’s almost impossible to match up a new door with an old frame. It can be done, but it’s definitely worth the cost/time offset. This lesson was learned with the inner garage door. Frustrating times, those.

Of course, installing a pre-hung door necessitates the removal of the old frame. And I’m glad I went through this trouble, because what lay beneath would not have been seen otherwise.

When the former homeowners installed the deck, as with all things they did to this place, they took the quickest and cheapest route to address any hangups. In this instance, in order to support the door base, they attached a piece of particle board vertically against the house frame. This wood was neither rated for moisture exposure nor sufficient to close the gap against nature’s intrusion. The particle board only succeeded in holding moisture against the house, resulting in rot and carpenter ant damage. And to further exacerbate the issue, it also formed a trench on top of the old concrete patio into which yard waste had accumulated.

Fortunately, the house joists were insanely solid, despite the ant damage. I suspect they were hardwood, not the usual pine, so I left them as-is, but not before we added a spray sealant for good measure. Then I layered planks of pressure-treated boards to replace the particle board and support the frame, stacked in a tile formation to prevent water ingress, complete with outdoor caulking on the joints.

The door itself, complete with frame, fitted as good as could be expected with only a few angry bouts of profanity. And as per my usual creed for upgrades applied to fixes, the strike plate was replaced with a security version, using 3.5″ screws through the frame and into the joists, in addition to the hinges. And the lock was given a proper upgrade as well.

I guess a beekeeper lives here, who’s also conscientious about weather-proofing and security.

Full sealant applied to the frame, the last external door has finally been addressed.

But not before a bronze bee knocker was added too.

–Simon

…is unlikely to catch fire, as it is now constructed of “Galvalume® coated steel with Sherwin-Williams Weather XL finish”, which is “cold-rolled steel that is hot-dipped in aluminum and zinc alloys”. So it’s unlikely to rust as well.

Fire and water – that’s two of the elements.

It’s also “typically rated for wind speeds of 120–160 mph — equivalent to EF-2 tornadoes (111–135 mph)”.

There’s wind.

And, it’s UL 2218 class 4 rated, which “means the roof can withstand a 2-inch steel ball dropped from 20 feet without cracking, splitting, or losing structural integrity.”

That counts as earth.

Yes – our roof is now likely the strongest part of the house.

Like most of the house, the existing roof was old and subjected to poor maintenance and former “repairs”. It’s always been a point of confusion to me that shingles are attached to the sheathing with nails that are over an inch longer than the boards are thick. The industry standard is apparently to waterproof a roof by punching thousands of holes in it, while simultaneously creating a hazard to many a cranium that dare to stand up too far in the attic. But I’m not a roofer, obviously. There must be a reason.

As for the prior homeowner, he had disconnected the attic fan, resulting in extreme temperature fluctuations which led to dry rot. The shingles were bent and shedding sand, and water intrusion was beginning. A full overhaul was needed, lest I fall through the roof and finally be freed of this mortal coil.

But first I needed to spend all my money. Leave nothing behind upon death, right? Isn’t that the Boomer credo?

And fortunately that wasn’t hard to do, especially not when selecting premium materials. It’s a pity I’ll have to strip the nice roof out and replace it with crappy shingles when we finally have to move out. Because, leave nothing of value to the next home-buyers, right? Isn’t that the home-seller’s credo?

But for the meantime, we’ll have a nice roof to enjoy.

Working with sales people is always a mixed bag. I had much experience with this when shopping for an HVAC replacement.

Aire de Vita

Sometimes they’re old people with no sense of humor. Sometimes they’re young people who haven’t acquired sufficient knowledge to talk about their products. Sometimes it’s obvious they’re trying to pull a psychological evaluation on me to bleed me dry (I’m not filling out a questionnaire on my feelings behind the purchase). In this instance, however, they appeared both mathematically-challenged and, shall we say, pushy on certain products, like a used car salesman. I initially asked about metal roofing, and was immediately dissuaded because of its high cost.

So we spent the remainder of the consultation looking at traditional asphalt shingles, colors, and cost. And when done with our selections, received a quote. Then we had a brief couples’ financial discussion. Then, before committing, I asked, for curiosity’s sake, what the metal roof quote would be. It turned out be about 10% more – which was perfectly doable. Rather than indulge potential buyers for a sales quote on a requested product, they had sized us up and steered us towards a more budget-friendly product. Which we rejected, because we wanted the metal. And that wasted us all a lot of damn time.

What followed was a confusing purgatory of delays and no-contact from the parent company. Bad weather, underestimated timelines of backlogged contracts, and failure to call and leave messages despite their protestations to the contrary, which left us impatient and annoyed. But eventually, they committed to a date.

Fortunately, the people actually doing the labor were far more competent than their administrative counterparts. Open to requests and forthcoming with information, only a few minor complains impacted the operation – which they willingly fixed.

I have yet to climb up there, mostly out of fear. Those standing seams look difficult to navigate, and I want it perfectly dry before I do any adventuring of my own. I anticipate gutter-cleaning and light-hanging to be somewhat more difficult, but at least the roof won’t need any further attention for what should be the remainder of our natural lifespans.

Oh, and we’re the first ones in the neighborhood to get a metal roof. Ha!

–Simon

Tag: house

Back Door Huh? Good Idea.

The Roof, the Roof, the Roof…