So Much for the Light at the End of the Tunnel...

So we think we have all the leaks fixed & I'm just lovin life.....we've got Tom's family coming in for the weekend & I'm gonna get my hands on our great niece Samantha who just turned 1 in May. Just look at that smile!

Samantha & her mom arrive (amazing how parents take a back seat after the kids are born) along with a torrential rain storm.
Guess what....Now we're putting buckets under the leaks in the family room!
There goes the light at the end of my tunnel.
The guys actually checked back after the rain storm to see if all was well & they found out I wasn't a happy camper. On Monday they went back up & found (surprise, surprise) the window molding between the upper triangular window & the lower square window had apparently never been caulked. Don't you wonder how they could have been up there specifically looking for issues relating to leaks & they never checked that??? Well it's all caulked now....once again let's hope this does it.

Ooohh Am I Mad!!! Water Leaks, Ice Damning...

You know that whole sitting down & crying thing??? We're not done....We can't repair the family room drywall until we actually determine where the leak is & eliminate it. In order to do that we need to remove the siding from the upper half of the house on the back side of the family room.

L click to enlarge photos

What we found were areas of plywood that weren't covered with Tyvek, areas of Tyvek that did not go under the window flashing, ripples in the Tyvek where it should have been smooth which literally created "funnels" to channel the water underneath it. Black water stains very evident on the plywood.... The whole area has been recovered with water & ice barrier & re-sided, lets hope that does it!

So the issues we found lit up a mental idea light bulb..."Hey, if that's the problem in the family room, could it also be the problem in the front of the house?" Tom had the guys pull the siding off the upper half of the house in the front. Sure enough, same issues & more...there were definitely sections where the plywood was water stained black. They found a hole under the soffit, which is one of the areas the ice damning was the worst....so was the heat from the house just funneling out of there & up under the soffit??? Makes sense to me, but then what do I know????
I just can't believe this mess....:(

L click to enlarge photos

And again..."Hey, if that's the problem in the family room, could it also be the problem in the dining room?" Tom had the guys pull the siding of the upper half of the house over the dining room. This is starting to sound like a bad re-run...there were sections where the plywood didn't even meet, missing Tyvek, like the top L & R pics-that bottom section of Tyvek was actually never there! The bottom L pic (over Al's head) you can see where there was a hole in the plywood & they filled it with expanding foam insulation!!!! The bottom R pic, the plywood is still wet from the last rain!!! No wonder the damn dining room won't dry so we could put the floor in!

L click to enlarge photos

Might as well tackle the last known area of leaks, which was in the attic. Remember the night we finally moved into the Master bedroom & woke up with cold wet feet??? No? I sure as heck do! ( Blog 3-13-07 Cold Feet) The leak hadn't reoccurred there but did in the attic. Guess what they found after pulling the siding??? Missing Tyvek, check out the upper R pic. This section of the house actually had the roof flashing over the Tyvek instead of under it...where do you think the water was diverted to ???

Well it's all fixed and there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel!!!
We'll be able to finish the family room & actually put the floor in the dining room!!!!

The Diva of Destruction

Time to repair the water damage in the family room, Mandy's chipping away at the bubbled paint, making even a bigger mess and I just don't think she needs to be smiling like this!

Long story short (is there such a thing?) she pulled off the drywall corner along the beam and the drywall underneath was moldy-gonna be a little more extensive than we thought, obviously this leak has been there since the beginning.
I think this is the point where I sat down on the floor & cried.

Window Washing 101

Well really it's only 74, but that does include doors & transoms too...then again it's inside & out so is it double that??? Or when one refers to window washing is it assumed that both sides will be washed? A question to ponder.....
In June of last year I told you we had a problem with the film that was installed between the window panes, it is supposed to keep the house cool in the summer, warm in the winter & help reduce fading from the sun's rays, but it was breaking down in places. Well we never ended up getting a hold of the company, (Procrastination is our middle name) thank goodness it's a lifetime warranty. So if you really want the whole story again see "Window Washing" 6-4-08, I had to do the same damn thing all over again. Except there are more windows now....well not more in the house, Tom didn't add another addition since the last up date, there are more windows with the film breaking down. So far 28 have film issues & 10 have scratches in the glass!!! How the heck can you have that many windows get scratched and some inside & some out??

Yes that actually is me in the picture, Mandy took a turn behind the camera.
So Tom called Paradigm, the window company, between our schedule & theirs, we'll see them the end of July. They travel from Maine & are in our area on certain days...so we'll see....I'll let you know the results.

They're In !!!

So it took from May 20th to June 8th ( not exactly the quick time frame Mandy originally thought) but they're re-stained, they're sealed & they are in!!!! We have a little tweaking to do yet, but it looks like this might actually be it!