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Are you ready for a free estimate for your next siding, windows or painting project?

P.S. We also made a new video for our Portland roofing company, Roof Life of Oregon. Have a look at our Roof Life of Oregon video when you’re done here.

The sellers made a big deal about the brand new vinyl replacement windows, and how much nicer they were than the old aluminum framed windows that had been there for years. You paid a home inspector to look at everything and report back to you. The inspector said that everything looked great, but noted that you should probably paint the house within the next year and be sure to caulk around those new windows at the same time. Like most of us, you made a note of it, but got lost in the excitement of moving into your new place. The report got filed away with the rest of your paperwork and the seasons moved on.

Fast forward to late fall, early winter; a cool day with winds blowing the rain horizontally towards your home. You wake up in the morning to find water all over the inside window sill and running down your wall to your new floors. Not only that, but you can FEEL that cool breeze inside your house. It feels like it’s coming through your windows!

Once you clean up the mess and try to assess if you can leave them for the rest of the day, you dig out your paperwork that tells you who installed your windows just 2 short years ago. You’d like to call the contractor that installed your windows. This isn’t good. You get that funny sound and a message that the number you called is no longer in use.

What are you supposed to do now?

Call us. We fix problems like this all the time.

The actual problem is easy to diagnose. Whoever installed your windows did it as quickly (cheaply) as they could. They removed the aluminum windows by collapsing the frames and ripping them out of the shear wall (that’s the external wall that your siding is attached to). Now, with a fairly clean hole to work with, they cut the flange off the new windows and placed them on the short ledge left from the old window and screwed them into place from the inside. To protect them from weather, they put ample latex caulking on the exterior to keep wind and rain out of the house. In the window industry, this is called “Screwed and Glued.”

It doesn’t look bad (from a distance), but did their retro window replacement work? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind…that same cold wind you now feel in your family room! The only thing keeping the weather out was that bead of latex caulk, and when it starts to fail the wind and rain will soon find their way inside.

In this case, the window installer should have exposed the shear wall by carefully removing siding and then installed the new windows properly. It takes a little more time. It requires trim and a bit of paint. But the result is years of satisfaction vs. years frustration and anger.

Only the companies who do it right the first time will be around to service any problems which might arise in the future. 1st Oregon Exteriors is committed to being here for the long haul. That’s the only reason we’re able to offer a warrantee on our workmanship.

The problem is that wet/dry rot in your walls makes for a really expensive problem to remedy and has the potential to stall a home sale. It is far better to deal with this error prior to a sale. We can help you determine if there is a problem, just call us.

Some people wonder how this could happen when the home is supposed to be inspected as its being built. Here is the answer:

In Portland, there is only one way to put the exterior of your home together to keep Oregon’s weather out, anything short of that is wrong and will fail. In Portland, we get 8 months of moisture. Sometimes it falls straight down, but on occasion it comes in sideways, and because of this the siding, windows and trim on your home need to be put on with that in mind. Every detail must be followed just as spring follows winter.

Without exception, houses with LP (Louisiana Pacific), Weyerhaeuser, or Masonite T-1-11 panels (that your home’s builder chose to put on your home) will fail due to application error.

Here are just a few of the most common application errors:

Too many nails driven past the outer skin of the panel. This allows water absorption and a place for rot to begin. In addition, as the siding begins to swell due to a manufacturing error, the nails sink into the panels even more everywhere. This usually happens on the two weather walls of your home.

Another very common error that will cost a homeowner a bundle is the fact that the framer of the house (not the siding installer) installed the panels. The Framer is paid by the foot to frame the house; not one thought is given to weatherization, moisture, and rot. These T-1-11 panels are an important part of the structure of your home. They double as a shear wall holding your framing straight and true, and also as an exterior siding. That’s how the builder saved money; by paying the framer to do a sider’s job.

You get big mistakes like installing the T-1-11 panels right on top of the window frames. The window frames hold moisture that is quickly soaked up by the panel and thus begins the rotting process. The same is true on any horizontal trim. The siding must not be touching the ledge. If a window has a trim accent, it must be flashed correctly. It is incorrect to caulk the entire top of any horizontal trim, as this doesn’t allow interior moisture to escape the wall as it travels downward. By putting dams at each end of the trim flashing, water will be prevented from going down the corners and entering into the interior window well.

That’s it, those are the biggies that will cost you a bundle, I hope we can help you sooner rather than later