The hardie installation instructions say to put the trim on first, then butt the siding against it. I did this on my garage but for some reason forgot to do the windows like this. It makes a difference. The bottom and top pieces don't sit flat.

Anyways, I'm not sure exactly how to do this on the house. The frame around the windows is only 2 2x4s (3"). The trim is 4". Nothing to nail the end of the siding to.

Probably gonna just nail some 2x4s to the sides of each window frame. ugh. I've been thinking about using the old window trim (1x4). Sort of a half-ass way to do this.

Any suggestions?

new stuff

Meaning the siding goes right up to the window and you're trying to put the trim over the siding? Not sure I'm clear on what you have going on here.

No, the instructions say to put the trim on before the siding. Then butt the siding up against the trim. But, there is not enough framing to nail the end of the siding where it meets the trim.

another question

Where should the bottom of the first row of siding go? Along the main beam or the framing that sits on the main beam? does it matter?

Ah. Just nail it to the sheathing and don't worry about it imo. Screw it if you're worried about pullout, but it's not going anywhere. Especially if you caulk it to the trim, which you definitely should.

You should take the siding as low as you have a place to attach it. You want the beam to be covered by something and not exposed to rain.

There isn't any sheathing.

ugh, now I'm getting pretty nervous about no sheathing. Ugh. Should this be done?

Hardie installation guide says it can go directly over braced studs. Only I don't think mine are even braced.

Oh wow, really? There isn't even a diagonal 1x4 cut into studs? Yikes.

Oh man, I really don't want to make you nervous about something when I can't really see the house and I'm just tossing out random thoughts on the internet. But, um... yeah. No sheathing and no bracing is, er... potentially a concern.

Yeah, I probably need it. Even if it is braced. I could tear off a side and see what is under there I guess.

Now I'm thinking about how much work (and money) this is. I'll have to re-install every window, right?

Nah, you should be able to work around the windows somehow. It'll be a little weird maybe, but whatever you decide to do that looks OK should be fine.

If it is braced, just stick some sort of nailer in at the windows. If it isn't, you still may not need to spend a ton of time and $$ on sheathing. You can let in bracing (you notch out the studs so it's all in plane), or go with steel. The Simpson route will be the more expensive one, but either way is far better than sheathing the entire house.

Well, I've had time to dwell on this some.

The sheathing route isn't horrible. It will obviously take more time but if my calculations are correct, about $500. In the grand scheme of things that isn't all that much to get a much better product. I mean, I've committed to fixing this up to stay for quite a while so might as well do it right.

The biggest issue will be the deck. I'll have to disconnect it from the house. Although I have been avoiding this, it is really much better that I do it. The siding in between the deck joist and the house frame is rotten and I really need to get in there and clean it out.

I'm going to tear off some of the back of the house tonight to see what is under there. But, I'm pretty sure there is no bracing. I'm a little concerned that the house might not be square, making the sheathing route a little more difficult.

I will have be getting some laborers so this shouldn't be terrible. Just more time consuming.

Just wait till you are done, and all the time you will have to

I know. I'll have the neverending blog.

This blog mainly serves as a warning to me to never ever look underneath the house

t minus 12 hours

Truck loaded down with sheathing.

You just can't get good help anymore.

Went to the day labor place. Found the guy that worked so hard for me (Rene) a while back. He's the one that ran that jackhammer all day. I had him pick another worker. Only I think he couldn't find anyone he knew would work hard so I think he just picked the guy he'd been talking to this morning.

We started on the hard side where the scaffolding is a pain. Neither was all that excited about being on scaffolding. Rene was particularly nervous. I ended pulling most of the top vertical siding off. The other guy was doing fine on the lower stuff but Rene couldn't figure out the best method. I had to show him about 5 times. About the time he figured it out, the other guy said his hand/arm was cramping up. So, I had him on cleanup duty.

Here's the guys. Rene is on the left. Crampy is on the right.




We didn't get anywhere near what I set out to accomplish.

I have a clean driveway and yard now, though. There used to be a pile of lumber and a pile of concrete





Here's what we got done. I'm really glad I made the decision to put sheathing on. Wanted to get wrap on before putting the windows back but we just didn't get there. Not a problem, though.

One of the problems we ran into - See those horizontal bracing 2x4s along the attic area? Well, those things were nailed an inch out so they could nail that vertical siding on top of the top row of horizontal siding. If that makes any sense. I had to remove every one and re-nail them. Ugh. That took quite a while.

The boy was asking my wife about mr boat and his house the other day, and obviously she was totally bemused both before and largely after I explained.

Some day I too might look back and laugh. Just not today.

This will be a several parter.

Went to the day labor camp. Rene was there so I got him. Crampy also came out but I told him I couldn't use him. He got pretty pissed. Rene told me later that the staff there was ready to ban him because he'd caused trouble.

Then, another guy came out. I explained that we would be tearing off siding. He said he liked putting stuff together better than tearing stuff off so he declined. Then some guy who looked about as old as me came out. I told him that we would be working pretty hard. He said he had his own tools and transportation and, "well, if I don't work out sent me home". So I got him. His name is Lance.

Lance, it turns out, knows a lot about just about everything when it comes to construction. But, he's also a little sloppy. Or probably I'm just a little too picky. I like nice clean cuts, Lance - not so much. But I could pretty much let him go off and do stuff while both of us used Rene for the labor part. It worked out pretty well.

So, I tackled the rest of the sheathing on the side while Lance tackled the back.

cont.

So, the big problem with the back is the deck is attached to the house with lag bolts. And, it is attached over the wood siding. To add to that, there's quite a bit of rot.

I put the deck on but because there were no gutters back there, there's all sorts of rot. Here are some pics.







So, the first thing we did was replace that receptacle. It's one of those that just clips from the back of siding when you can't properly nail it to the stud. Fortunately, I had 2 boxes (we replaced 2). But that wood was so horrible we had to replace the stud as well as the bottom plate. Lance did all of that.

If you look at the top 2 pics you can sort of see the deck joist that is bolted through the siding.

I had a couple of options here. One was to dismantle the deck and get that bottom siding off, and redo the deck. This would have been a huge job. Part of the problem is the foundation guys picked the house up about 2 inches back there so the deck is not sitting on the deck foundation properly. So, dismantling the deck would have been extremely difficult.

I decided to just put sheathing down to the deck joist. I'll put the necessary shimming under the deck joists to make it more solid. Then, I'll flash this all properly. Onto the sheathing and over the deck joists.

This and the fact that I now have gutters should eliminate all these problems. If not, I guess the back of the house will just have to fall off.

So, I got part of the side of the house sheathed. And, I got some more soffit installed. I pretty much had to do the soffit before the sheathing because the soffit is 12" and it is framed for exactly 12" without the sheating. I really didn't want to have to rip a 12' piece of hardi soffit so I just put it on first.

As you can see, the area around the electrical panel isn't done. I'll have to plan this for later.





Here's a pic of the back. Notice my really nice new french door! Oh, wait. It was 7:00 and both guys had pretty much said they were done for the day. So, my french door is 4x8 OSB. Looks great, huh!



Here's my door from the inside. Looks even better.

Soooo......

Lance agreed to show up tomorrow to hang that door. There's another issue with the kitchen windows. There are 3 small windows and the frames aren't quite right. So, we need to try to get the windows level with each other.

They weren't before and I sort of cut trim all wonky to make it work. It bugged me every time I looked at it. So, we'll be getting them right.

I'm really glad he has his own transport. He even agreed to take Rene home tonight.

Long long day. And, my house was pretty damn hot since we cut the power to the AC to work over there. And, my cable box is now plugged into an extension cord from the garage.

But, house is cooling down and I do have cable so life is good even without french doors.

Oh yeah. One more thing. The house is not framed properly at all. Finding studs will be a, um challenge. So, I think I'm going to have to map the studs before I put tyvek up. The siding really needs to be nailed to studs. Pretty time consuming but it will need to be done.

Lance agreed to come by at 10:00 today. I'm pretty tired and didn't want a full day.

My original plan was to get the door and kitchen windows in. The kitchen window frames aren't lined up properly so it will take 2 people to get them all lined up. And, french doors are definitely a 2 person job.

However.....................

Not having the side of the house completely sheathed was bugging me so I decided to finish that up. Took quite a while but I got it. At least around the electrical panel.



The deck issue was bugging me as well. When they raised the house the deck came with it. The joists sit on beams only they aren't sitting on the beams anymore. Lance and I brainstormed for quite a while and I finally decided to just shim them up to take the load off of the lag bolts holding it all up.

There are some other wood rot issues back there. One of the 2x6s at the bottom, in a perfect world, would need to be replaced. However, there are 2 parallel 2x6s less than a foot away providing plenty of support and the siding will just cover up the outside one. There's really some more rot as well but the only possible way to get to it is to remove the deck and I just don't want to do that. If the back of the house crumbles, then it crumbles I guess.

Anyways, here is Lance shimming.



Then we sorta decided that we might as well put up the tyvek before we put the french doors and kitchen windows in. The windows in the pic were already in so we just cut the tyvek around them. Not really the way to do it but no harm done because I'll be sealing them with tape. Here's that part of the house. Don't you love my wrinkly tyvek job?



So, by the time we got to what I had wanted to do in the first place it was about 2:00.

We put the french doors in and it just wasn't right. We tried about a million things and they just wouldn't close properly. It was so confusing because everything we tried that make sense from a squaring standpoint didn't work. Howe frustrating. We spent probably 2 hours on them before we finally figured out the frame on the bottom was crowned. Once we shimmed up the corners from the bottom, it was gravy.

The windows were pretty easy but at the end of the day when you are tired they seemed not easy. We got two in but the third was too high even sitting on the sill so we had to start there, and raise (unscrew and screw back in) the other 2. Geez.

But, the back of the house is looking pretty good. Check out my french doors! Ain't they purty?



Since the house has been open for the better part of 2 days, all of the neighborhood mosquitos have taken the opportunity to move in.