We're having the siding on our house replaced. It had some visible damage and probable water damage, so it was time. The damage was so much worse than we anticipated! Let me just show you in pictures:
(Blogger issue: this image is saved in the correct orientation, but always uploads upside down, and I can't rotate the image on Blogger... sigh.)
I promise you: these problems were not obvious before the siding was removed!
There were a couple of problems: no Tyvek under the siding, and some of the flashing was installed incorrectly, letting water pour behind it and along the plywood on the house. The deck area is another issue - it was installed poorly. It wasn't even anchored to the house, it was only nailed to the house. There was no flashing installed on the deck, so water sat between the siding and the deck and rotted away the siding, leaving black mold and white mold. The back door that goes out onto the deck sticks out from the house, and the bottom of the door area that sticks out just had foil. FOIL. Water was sitting on the foil, soaking into the plywood, and mold was everywhere. Thankfully, the crew we hired is drying out soaked areas, replacing as much Buffalo Board as needed, taking off the rot from the frame of the house, and killing the mold. They're doing a good job!
When my parents bought this house about 10 years ago they did have inspections done. None of this was caught.
We're having the siding company install Tyvek under the new siding. This is one use of plastic I can support! If the house had Tyvek installed in the first place (and installed the flashing correctly) we might not have any of this mold damage.
Yes, these couple of weeks have been ROUGH. Oh the inflammation, aches, brain fog, severe fatigue, painful stomach cramps and bloating, skin rashes, and eye pain! The eye pain!!! The scary part is that I've basically lost my sense of smell. I can hardly even detect smells that should alert me to toxicity in the air, which I'm using hyper alert to.
Why am I living in this house while all this mold is getting kicked up? First and foremost, I didn't think it would get into the house since it's all on the outside of the house. That ended up being not true. They found evidence that mold was getting into the house through electrical outlets. The vapor barrier on the backside of the drywall was not sealed around the electrical outlets around the entire house, so any mold sitting in the frame of the house or the insulation got behind the vapor barrier a bit around the outlet boxes, and then into the house. Scary. So all that mold is being kicked up as they've been sealing up the vapor barrier around the outlets. The other reason is that I don't have anywhere else to go that's safe for me. I'd be no better off staying with other people I know, as the use scented things, Lysol, chlorine, etc.
I'll write a lot more later, because there's much to be said, but I'm hurting too much. My fingers are even throbbing a bit in the joints.
Oh, and in case you live in my area and need house repairs done, we're using Fettig Millwork and Windows. He and his crew are doing a fantastic job!
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