Defect / Water Leak Remediation

Sitting up on a hill above Camus Washington at the mouth of the Columbia River Gorge. The weather frequently turns horizontal here.

Yet the exposure to wind-driven rain hitting the southeastern facing corner of this house wouldn’t be a problem if the exterior envelope was put together correctly.

What began as some simple investigative exploration quickly turned into the discovery of gross negligence.
Above, our technician Tim is shown pointing to the fact that the moisture-barrier is overlapping the bottom nailing-fin on the window.

Removal of siding near the ground below reveals just the beginnings of the water-damaged plywood sheathing & other structural components we would eventually discover on this project.

If you enlarge the photo above by clicking on it, you may be able to make out the fact that the moisture barrier was cut too short to overlap the nailing-fin on the Vinyl Window.

As these two above photos reveal, the damage extended on around the corner and along the east facing elevation of the house.

It’s a fairly common practice to temporarily cover over the exterior wall portions we’ve opened up while we continue our hunt for points of entry and the subsequent damages they cause.

Tracing back the water-stains takes us all the way up to the roofline (top photo). It might be asked whether or not this corner is the only place where the substandard exterior-envelope work was applied to this house.

The odds seem slim that the poor workmanship was isolated. But you may notice that the remaining portions of the river-facing back of this house have significant overhangs. Always a good thing from our point of view.

All buttoned up and better than new.