Plywoods

My home’s exterior is stuccoboard and rough-cut cedar trim. It was built in 1979 and about 25% of the cedar trim was replaced in 1993 when I moved in.

I pretty much neglected the wood after I moved in. I had done some minor repairs with exterior filler and used a lot of acrylic caulk, but as of the summer of 2006, I had a considerable amount of rotten trim around the entire house. The worst areas are where a vertical board and a horizontal board intersect. I had quite a bit of badly warped trim as well. Areas of stuccoboard were rotten under the trim in a few cases.

If I could keep these trim intersections from “wicking” and retaining moisture, which allows decay to eventually set in, I could probably solve the problem. This is where drip edges for the intersections idea started. That, along with a composite trim board are my vision for a much more maintenance-free stuccoboard home.

A piece of stuccobard panel is ten feet high by four feet wide with 1×8 cedar boards surrounding the perimeter of the panel. Generally an eight foot vertical board runs along the side of a panel and meets a horizontal board at the top and the bottom of the panel. I only have a couple of strictly “decorative” trim boards.

My home is two story, and I’m not really comfortable working more than about 12 feet off the ground. Most of the decayed cedar is located where the bottom of a vertical board meets the top edge of the horizontal board. This is true either on the first or second level. So, I can reach most repairs from the ground or on a short ladder. I had a couple repairs twenty feet up in the air, and I hired a carpenter for those. As far as the horizontal boards, I’ve replaced most all of them on my house. All four sides had bad trim boards. Especially those that were facing south and west, and corners. Most of the vertical trim is still the original thirty-year old boards, although I needed to repair many of these as well.

Most carpenters will just tear out an entire vertical board and replace it with a new one. Even if only the bottom few inches is bad. Since these decayed areas are in reach, and carpenters, paint and caulk are expensive (not to mention trees and landfills), I was looking for a good way to fix these decayed areas on the bottom of the vertical boards. I believe I have found (invented!) one. This method would probably work on t111 buildings or others with similar issues, though I have not tried it.

Many of the horizontal boards underneath a window were also decayed and/or warped. On the second level, these were about thirteen feet off the ground, so I was able to safely reach and replace those as well.

I selected Miratec synthetic trim board instead of cedar for the project. It is warranted for 30 years against rotting and warping. It looks good, it has a woodgrain appearance to it, and it seems to be standing up to the weather very well. The first boards I installed, on the south side of the house in 2006, still look great. The caulk seam along the top of the horizontal boards, and the sides of the vertical board “plugs”, which is 100% silicone rubber (GE XST paintable), still looks brand new. This is a major point of caulk failure, and eventual rot on a cedar trim board. I have also found that the quality of today’s rough-cut cedar boards is not the same as it was 30 years ago.

All miratec trim is screwed on with deck screws approximately 18 inches apart. I use 3.5 inch “deck mate” treated screws. I need to go through an inch of trim, a half inch of stuccoboard, and an inch of styrofoam sheet insulation. This leaves one inch of screw to go through framing wood.

project totals:

horizontal composite trim – 139 feet
vertical composite trim – 69 feet
vertical cedar trim – 40 feet
horizontal cedar trim – 8 feet
fascia replaced – 60 feet
fascia covered with vinyl-coated aluminum – 120 feet
stuccoboard panel replaced – 1
steel doors and wooden jambs replaced w/ fiberglass – 3
composite or wooden trim plugs installed – 22
aluminum drip edges – 45
aluminum drip caps – 10
plywood repairs – 6
filler repairs – 16
tubes of 100% silicone paintable caulk – 20
tubes of polyurethane caulk – 34
2″ flashing tape – 150 feet
exterior weatherproof glue – 1.75 quarts
wood hardener – 1.5 quarts

The drip edges and trim plugs are almost impossible to see unless you are very close to them, and are looking right at them. Which is rare for 99% of the people that visit my home. I believe they look pretty good. I created some plugs of salvaged, seasoned cedar and you can barely tell they are there. The plug at 1:49 is a sixty year-old piece of cedar. It still looks good.

Go to video part two for the description on how to do a repair

Duration : 0:9:45

[youtube 07f1_SCr834]