Help, my new house is rotting away!

Rotted finger jointed primed pine
from a 5 year old deck

Living here in Ipswich near the shore, I spend a considerable amount of time repairing rotted exteriors.  i'm not talking about the 350-year old houses for which this historic community is famous. It's the new ones, including the frequently derided "McMansions" that begin deteriorating almost as soon as they go up.

The fault lies in the materials being used. My early 50's ranch is nestled into the landscape surrounded by oak and pine. The front side sees sunlight only in the morning. Yet I have had to repair only a couple of spots where leaking gutters kept the wood  consistently wet. The framing is Douglas fir, the beveled siding is red cedar with a solid stain, and it looks almost as good as the day it was built. The exterior trim is pine with lots of resin, and does occasionally need paint but has not rotted.

New  radiata pine at top, and
60 year old pine from my house
shown at bottom

Jump forward to the 21st century.
The farm-grown spruce used for framing is lightweight and cannot tolerate moisture. For exterior trim, builders are using primed finger-jointed radiata pine, a non-durable timber that will deteriorate very rapidly when wet if not treated with a fungicide. It looks great at first, but the finger joints begin to open up, un-primed cuts and edges absorb moisture, and  within a year black streaks start radiating up the corners of the house. Fungi and mold are moving in, and much of the exterior trim will need to be replaced in just a few years.

House Wraps

Cup fungi love wet wood

The zealous use of moisture barrier house wraps may have even increased the problem. In order to prevent moisture from saturating wall insulation, most houses today are built with plastic sheathing beneath the drywall on the inside and Tyvek or other moisture barriers applied to the exterior sheathing. In a perfect world this prevents water from getting in. The world is not perfect, water does get in, and it has no way to escape. Often when I remove a rotted exterior trim board I find soaking wet Tyvek beneath. Walls become  sponges. While the building code in many areas specifies modern house wrap, I've never encountered a seriously rotted soaking wet wall underneath old fashioned tar paper.


What trim to use?

PVC trim board

For wood purists, the ideal solution is cedar or fir for your exterior trim. All surfaces, cuts and edges should be painted with a coat of oil primer before installation. The best finger-jointed primed pine in our area is Centurion produced by Claymark, treated with boric acid and guaranteed for 50 years. My preference is PVC trim (Azek, Kleer, etc.) which comes in standard board dimensions and is almost indistinguishable from wood. Some brands come with all four edges smooth, while other brands finish only the flat surfaces. Ripped edges should be planed and painted with a couple of coats of exterior latex paint so that the rough edges don't create a home for algae. Joints should be glued or caulked.

The best storm door

Andersen 4000 fullview storm door

I replaced a dozen storm doors this year, and the best by far is the Andersen 4000 Fullview series, priced at $279 - $319.00 at Home Depot. Construction is similar to the less expensive 3000 series, but the unique mechanism for switching screen and glass panels in the 4000 models makes it worth the difference in price.

Lower end units use thumb screws to hold the panels in place, which worked but is unsightly. Andersen answered this in the 2000 and 3000 series by using plastic strips that snap in place around the panels. These strips are  hard to get in without a hammer and block, and even more difficult to remove without breaking them. Most homeowners never switch the glass and screen panels because of this difficulty. Not so with the 4000 series.

Andersen 4000 storm door, black w/bronze hardware

The 4000 series storm doors have mechanical locking tabs hidden in the door frame that are operated by the handle. Simply push the safety button up, allowing the handle to be raised to a vertical position. This disengages the tabs, and the glass or screen panel comes out by simply leaning it toward you. Put the other panel in place, and turn the handle back down to its normal position. You're done-- it takes less than a minute.

Both the 3000 and 4000 series storm doors are thicker with a solid feeling, and have redundant weatherstripping that makes them  airtight when installed properly. Be sure to read and follow all instructions. The frame legs and door edge cover will  have to be cut to fit your door opening. Installation takes approximately 3 hrs. If you are removing an older door, this is a good time to repaint the exterior door casings before installing the new storm door, especially since the aluminum frames on these units are about 1/4" narrower than older models, and old paint lines will show.

Andersen 4000 storm door reviews:  

	Video:   Installing  an Andersen Storm Door
	Video:  Changing Glass on the 4000 Fullview Storm Door

The Oscillating Tool: How did I manage without this ?

A friend told me about an oscillating blade tool he used to undercut his living room baseboard so that he could slide new flooring boards underneath rather than pull the baseboards and have to deal with all the re-nailing, patching and painting.This tool is so new that it hasn't yet earned a nifty name like "sawzall" or "circular saw", and is simply called "Oscillating Tool". They can be rather pricey and I held off on purchasing until I saw the Master Mechanic 129315 2.5-Amp Oscillating Tool with Tote Bag and 34-Piece Accessory Kit on sale for $47.49 at Amazon.com, (sometimes less, with Amazon Promotional Codes). The day it arrived it helped me made quick work of removing "brick mold" window trim. I simply pried the boards out 1/6" from the sheathing , cut the nails with the metal oscillating blade and pulled the window out without having to remove the casings. On a bathroom tile job yesterday I used the oscillating tool to cut out the bottom 3/8" of drywall so I could slide the tiles underneath, as shown in the photo above. The other reservation I had about picking up this tool was the exorbitant prices I've seen for the blades. The Master Mechanic oscillating tool comes with a nice tote bag full of blades,but just like a sawzall, you'll go through blades when you discover how handy this tool is. Metal-cutting blades wear quickly, especially if you hit a hardened sheetrock screw. There are a lot of mounting systems but Versa-Tool makes quality universal oscillating tool blades that fit most systems including the Master Mechanic model. At $39.95, the price for the 1-3/8-Inch Wood Cutting Universal Oscillating Saw Blade 10 Pack, and Bi-Metal Universal Oscillating Saw Blade 10 Pack is what you would pay for just a couple of these blades at the big box stores.

Using Jointer Pal for jointer knife alignment

Mark the high point of the blade rotation

A couple of years ago I bought a new Rigid 6" jointer. It has a lot of nice features including fast speed, dust collection, heavy duty adjustments, etc., but I was happy with how it actually worked. Unless the knives were set very low it would tend to chip away at the leading and tail ends of the board, skipping the middle, and instead of straightening the board it would actually create a slight arch after several passes.





Recently a friend offered me his 20 year old Craftsman table saw and jointer if I would just help him get them out of his basement. Those are dependable old belt drive machines and well worth the effort of hauling several hundred pounds of steel up stairs. I started using that jointer and was pleased and surprised that it could make a perfectly straight board with a few passes.

The knives on the Ridgid jointer were getting a bit dull, so I decided to have a go at sharpening them, using my bench grinder and finishing with a sharpening stone. Fairly happy with the results, I found it very frustrating to align the knives perfectly so that they were all at the same height.

Sliding the new 6 1/8" jointer blade into the cutter head holder

My 12" planer has small springs under the knives which push on a guide as I tighten them in place. The jointer is the opposite-- the knives kept slipping down. When I thought I had it as good as I could get, I plugged the jointer back in and ran a board. The sound was rough and there were very obvious planer marks. Obviously, at least one blade was sitting higher than the others.

That's when I went on the web and discovered Jointer Pal., a simple tool that uses strong magnets to hold the knives in the right position while you tighten the screw. I ordered Jointer Pal and a new set of
knives, installed them and now I have perfectly smooth boards.
Here's how it works:

(1) ALWAYS unplug any tool before working on the knives.

(2) Using a straight edge, set the feed and outgoing tables on the jointer to the exactly same height

(3) Rotate the blade so that you determine exactly where the high point of the rotation is, and mark this on the jointer fence. You can watch the knife as it push on the straight edge to determine this location

Alignment of the blade tip with the Jointer Pal in place

(4) Remove and replace knives one at a time. The knives on my jointer are secured with nuts that can be loosened with a 3/8" wrench. From the position shown in the pictures, you will actually be turning the nut clockwise, which is counter-intuitive. Be very careful-- I've sliced a knuckle more than once when the wrench slipped. To avoid that, I secure my hand against the fence.

(5) Drop the new knife in, making sure it points in the correct direction, is centered in the cutter head, and that the tip of the knife aligns with the high point mark you made on the fence. I jammed a small wedge of wood between the cutter head and the body to hold it in that position.

((6) Now set the Jointer Pal as shown in the picture. The strong magnets in the bar on the rear hold the tool in perfect alignment with the jointer table, and the other bar is set directly over the knife so that the magnets in that bar pull the knife up, tight to the bar. Making sure that the point of the blade is still aligned with the mark on the fence, tighten the screws in a counter clockwise direction until each is snug, then finish tightening.

(7) Repeat this sequence for the other two knives, make sure all tools are out of the way, plug in the machine and your jointer will work beautifully. If you are in the market for any tools, check for promotional codes before you buy and possibly save some money.

Dust collection in a home shop

Dust collection is important for shop cleanliness as well as protecting our health. While no system is 100% perfect, the assortment of methods shown below that I use in my shop does capture 99% of the dust. A Delta two bag dust collector handles the larger ports, while I use shop vacs for tools with smaller orifices.

4" hoses connect table saws, jointer and radial arm saws to Delta two bag dust collector

Table saw connected to dust collector plus improvised  fence collection

Auto switch from Sears turns on vac when tools are activated

Sanding bench connected to collector, sander and Sears bandsaw connected to vac

4" hose collects dust on my Craftsman radial arm saw

Overhead collector removes dust in the air

View from below of improvised dust collection on older Craftsman jointer

Second tablesaw connected to 4" system, and improvised router table dust collection

There are Sears coupons available for shop vacs.

Remodeling with Photoshop

Recently a prospective client saw a portico that I had built for a neighbor and asked if I could do something similar for his house. One of my first steps in making a proposal is to put together a mock-up of the design. Using Photoshop, I superimposed the existing portico onto the front door area of their house.

The picture below shows the client's house with the existing landing, steps and railing. The photo to the right is of the neighbor's portico. The second row shows options for a tall and medium sized portico. I think the shorter version fits this house.

Here's how I superimposed the portico on the house:
(1) I start with monochrome (black and white) photos so that I don't have to try to match colors, just the contrast and brightness. In Photoshop, change color to monochrome by going to image/mode/grayscale.  Then I set the resolution for both photos the same. 

(2) I cropped and copied the portico roof from the photo of the neighbor's house. The rectangular marquee is a good selection tool for rectangular areas, but for the angled roof slope I used the polygonal lasso tool. Since the photo is taken from the opposite angle, I reversed the image horizontally by going to image/rotate canvass/flip canvass horizontally, drug it to the client's front porch, then re-sized the pasted image using trial and error until the front door was the same size in both photos.  The roof's shadow on the side wall of the house over the door was a fortunate accident from pasting.

(3) The horizontal view angle perspective is also a little different in the two original pictures, so I used the "Skew" function in Photoshop. First I increased the size of the canvas for the portico shot so that I would have room to work. Then I pulled the corners so that the deck lines were at the same angle, giving the two sets of stairs the same perspective. It took a few tries but eventually I had a fairly close match. Each attempt required going to "edit / step back" so that only the correct image would be pasted in permanently.

To finish, I used the rectangular selection tool, copied parts of the posts and pasted them in, then used the paint brush and line functions to finish. It wasn't necessary to make a perfect photo, but starting with a basic visual model of how the finished product will look helps both the client and the designer.

View a previous article about using Photoshop with cabinetry images.

Paint brushes can last forever

On the left is pictured a Purdy paint brush I've been using for ten years. The 2 1/2" angled design is perfect for painting straight sharp lines as well as for general usage on medium size surfaces. Purdy is the choice of all professional painters for the quality of their paint brushes -- the bristles do not fray, bend, or fall out and the brush keeps its shape. I prefer their nylon bristle brushes which can be used with any paints, although the china bristle brushes perform beautifully with oil paints. In my carpentry work I often paint my own finished products, and I always paint the cut ends and edges of exterior boards to prevent them from rotting. A good brush can last forever if you take care of it. The immediate concern is to not allow paint to dry on the brush. On the job, you can delay that by wrapping the paint-soaked brush in plastic or aluminum foil when you're not using it. Try to remember to clean the brush soon after you're through with it. For the first step, latex cleans with water, oil base and urethane cleans with mineral spirits, turpentine etc.. Shellac (such as BIN primer) cleans with denatured alcohol.. A wire brush using down strokes the length of the bristles will help you remove hardened particles.

Clean your brushes with paint thinner in a large yogurt container. The old paint sediment will settle to the bottom. After several days carefully pour the clear thinner from the top into another container for reuse. Dispose of the paint sediment in the original container.

My final step is to clean the brush again with hot soapy water until the brush is clean and all residue of the paint and solvent is gone. I then wrap the brush in a fresh piece of aluminum foil to keep it moist and to retain a perfect point.


Purdy brushes have always been the professional's choice, long-lasting when properly cared for.  Cheap dollar-store brushes should be considered disposable, used for contact cement or difficult to clean paints.  At about half the price of a Purdy brush, eco-friendly PX brushes sold at K-Mart are receiving great reviews. 

Look here for Kmart coupons for painting supplies.