Window/door question

[Charlesaf3]

Like eddie said, post some pics and we can help you out.

Housewrap shouldn't go under the window fins btw. You never want to channel water towards the house.

Caulk has its role, but waterproofing isn't really it. If you are using caulk to waterproof, you are in trouble. As belt and suspenders its fine.

But its all about proper flashing. Vycor or some such from the bottom. Then a cap over the window. Then lead over the cap. Then siding over the lead. That's how I do it, thats how builders have been doing it for 100s of years (minus the vycor) and that will not leak.

Always channel water out from the house like a fish scale.

Joe Lstiburek at Building Sciences is a genius and has done epic work. His books are expensive, but worth it.

If housewrap isn't up yet, I'd look into rainscreen like the Benjamin Obdyke btw. If your climate isn't pretty dry, rain screen detailing is well worth it. Keeps paint good longer too.

If you are buildning a new house, you MUST have a heat recovery ventilator, or you probably will have mold and interior air issues. We build tight houses, which is great for energy savings, but houses like people need to breath. That's left out 95% of the time I'd say, and its going to be a disaster.

I would never use OSB myself, as an aside. The poor quality you put in will torment you if water gets in, and the savings isn't huge - labor is most of a job. Not a fan of vinyl either, but I'm not going to go there as I don't want to step on peoples toes.

Hope that helps, I appreciate your hydraulic help on here and would like to pay it back.

 

[dmccarty]

Joe Lstiburek at Building Sciences is a genius and has done epic work. His books are expensive, but worth it.

I think highly of Lstiburek and what he has to say. I have seen him defend his opinions in other forums and have been impressed.

Wayne County Hose,

Seem like you might be stalled at the moment. This could be an opportunity. I would hghly recommend Lsitburek's book regarding building in your area. At this stage you might be able to use some of his design details. I found his books to be very clear and detailed.

Getting a good builder is hard. The way we figured, we would be married to the builder for a year or so and living with the result for many years there after. I have met some builders I would not let build a dog house. Others I think might have done good work but we would not mesh well. We found our builder when we visited a house being built from a kit. We met the kit manufactuer at the site and spent maybe 30 minutes talking. We then spent a couple hours talking with the builder whose name is Richard. I went back a week later and talked with Richard for a few more hours.

On the day we met Richard, we were leaving the site, the wife and I looked at each other and we knew we had found our builder. Finding a good builder you can work with is hard. But is paramount you find that builder. He/She is going to be spending LOTS of YOUR money.

Later,
Dan

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Thanks everyone so much for your help. Let me put it this way, if this were a machine, I would tear it apart and start over again, but this is not an option. I tried loading some pics, but now I have a problem with my Kodak program, it won't open. Sometimes life is like an oldies station, the hits just keep on getting better.
Wait until you see the pics. The builder wrapped the first floor, then did just around the windows on the second floor so that he wouldn't have to move his picks, or whatever you call them. If he worked as hard on getting this done as he has worked making excuses, we would be living in it by now. Now, the windows have to come out, new house wrap put up, then the windows installed again.

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Okay, here is a recent pic I have of the house. You can see how he put the Tyvek (I know, it's a different brand) in the upstairs window. I'll get some closeup pics of the windows and post tomorrow.

 

[Charlesaf3]

Can you give a bigger picture? Or one where the window is more of the frame? I can't make out useful details from that I fear.

Pictures of the deck structure from underneath, towards the ledger and towards the rim, would also be good.

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Charles, I'll do so tonight. That was just the best pic I had on my computer at this time.
Thanks, Andy.

 

[tommu56]

Andy I have a kodak camera and hate the software I just copie files in windows explorer from the camera (looks like a usb drive) to windows explorer to my hard drive.
You might have to stop kodak software from poping up when you plug camera in but i dont rember how i did it. but it couldent have been to hard if i fugered it out.

tommu

 

[CurlyDave]

Looking at that picture, there is another thing I would check. That is the detail of the posts under the porch.

Those posts either need to be pressure treated or be on post bases which keep them a certain distance above grade (depends on local code). I can't see the bases from the picture, but it sure doesn't look like they are far enough above grade to prevent termites.

 

[EddieWalker]

Like the others have mentioned, the porch looks like it might be interesting.

That top window looks like he took some strips of house wrap and used it as some sort of weird liner before putting in the window. It's hard to tell, but it looks rough, and kind of like he cut it off of the roll. I can't imagine why he didn't wrap the upstrairs, nor can I comprehend how he plans to waterproof the bottom half of house wrap? If you get any rain or moisture at all, it's all going behind the house wrap and staying there.

Do the dormers have flashing to keep water out at the junction where they meet the roof? Are they real dormers? or are they built on top of the roof for looks?

Without knowing square footage or details, it's easy to assume that you have allot of money into it. I would seriously consider my advice to hire a home inspector to go through every inch of the place.

For grins and giggles, post pics of all the details and we'll give you a list of things to look for and what is and/or might be wrong. The problem with our advice is that we're not there and might lead you on goose chases, or cause you more worry then you really needed.

Eddie

 

[Charlesaf3]

Good point Eddie, I'd missed that - I sure don't see any step flashing on the dormers. Just putting the housewrap down under the shingles is NOT enough.

I'm not as big on home inspectors though - found a lot of them who weren't that impressive. I'd pay a good contractor to come out and give his opinion.

 

[CurlyDave]

Just putting the housewrap down under the shingles is NOT enough.

There shouldn't be housewrap under the shingles in any circumstance. Either roofing felt, or now there is a new product called something like "ice-guard". It is a very thick, rubbery membrane with adhesive, sort of like Scotch tape, but much heavier duty. The roofers put that on my house. I had asked for triple paper, but they claimed this would be better, and after looking it over, I had to agree.

I had expected valley flashing in the valleys like on the dormers in that picture, but these guys interleaved the shingles in a kind of a woven pattern. I was dubious at first, but I drove around the area here in Oregon and roughly 50% of the houses had that done, while the other 50% had valley flashing. The ones with the interleaved shingles were the higher-end houses. Based on that, I let it go, and after last winter's very heavy rains, I have to say it has held up well. In California, there would have been valley flashing on 95+ % of the houses.

I'm not as big on home inspectors though - found a lot of them who weren't that impressive. I'd pay a good contractor to come out and give his opinion.

I would get an inspector instead of another contractor. My experience is that no contractor will ever praise another one's work. Sort of like a continual p!$$ing contest. An inspector doesn't have any axe to grind and will give a more unbiased opinion. Also, the opinion of a licensed inspector has legal weight, which the opinion of a second contractor does not.

I am not really that all concerned about the upstairs not being wrapped at this point, as long as it gets done eventually. Wrap that is added now will properly overlap the lower level wrap.

As for the window, I think you need to fire your contractor and get someone else to re-install the windows.

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Builder has been fired, Trump style. He still doesn't think he did anything wrong. The whole world is wrong, the architect, me, the I-joist manufacturer, Andersen, etc. I am going to pull all the windows, re-wrap the house, then install the windows properly. I'm going to do this myself over the July 4th weekend, weather permitting.

The porch is set on 15" diameter concrete footers sunk 4' down. The 6"x6" pressure treated posts are set on the steel anchors as per code. I made sure everything there was good. Funny, the excavating contractor told the builder what he had to do, then the excavator told me.

Eddie, the 2nd floor windows are all exactly as you mentioned. He told me he didn't want to install the house wrap first because he would have to move the scaffolding around too many times. So, he cut strips and installed from the inside. Unfortunately for me, I was ignorant to the process and didn't know better. Now I do.

The roof was done by a different contractor. They are real dormers. There is step flashing from the dormers to the roof, and over 450' of ice and water shield on the whole roof, way above what code requires. I have no issues with the roof or the way it was done.

I am in the process of locating a home inspector. I will have have this work inspected. I am trying to find the same guy that inspected our original house 14 years ago when we bought it. He was very thorough and knowledgable.

I was going to take pics last night but I got busy here at the shop and couldn't make it over there. I am meeting the builder today at 5:30 so that he can get his stuff out of the house, I will take pics then.

I really can't thank you guys enough. And Eddie, don't worry about sending me on a goose chase or worrying me. I would rather be concerned now and have it right then have a problem later. Yes, I do have a lot of money in this house. 2"x12"x20' rafters ain't cheap. And no, he didn't leave an interior wall for waste plumbing to go down. He made all the interior walls 2x4's. We ended up running it thru a closet, which I will make into a chase so it's not a big deal anyway.

 

[Charlesaf3]

Curlydave - not my experience, but then I'm in the business so mine might be different. Most good contractors I know won't say anything bad about someone elses work unless they know you - don't want the hassles.

Home inspecting doesn't take much of a license, if there even is one. I've come into contact with many I wasn't impressed with. They have on online test for home inspectors which is ridiculously easy. If you look at what they inspect, they specifically leave out most stuff in the fine print.

Granted, I'm sure there are good ones out there, but my experience has been poor.

 

[aczlan]

And no, he didn't leave an interior wall for waste plumbing to go down. He made all the interior walls 2x4's. We ended up running it thru a closet, which I will make into a chase so it's not a big deal anyway.

while you are doing that chase, might I recommend adding a 2-4 inch pipe that goes from the basement to the attic either in the chase or a couple in the walls??? when I worked as an electrician we did that on all new houses, it makes life MUCH easier 5-10 months/years down the road when you need another circuit or want to run a wire for __________ to the upstairs. much easier than trying to fish wire through a chase.

Just my $0.02

Aaron Z

 

[tommu56]

I would suggest a second chase 4" just in case you end up with a radon problem at from the basment to the attic you would only have to add fan and the connection under the slab and through roof.

I had to rout one in for a neighbor andit was a mess just so he could get his house sold.

tommy

 

[Wayne County Hose]

He-he. Way ahead of you guys. My brother is an electrician and is handling all of that. He already told me he's installing one 4" and two 2" pieces of PVC pipe from the basement to the attic. All will be capped until needed. Fortunately, electric is the least of my worries.

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Okay, here's some pics. Note the extra lumber around some of the windows. The builder forgot how to use a tape measure. The window sizes matched the window schedule, he made the openings the wrong size. Questions and comments welcome. There's also a sideways pic of the porch post footer. And a pic of the cathedral ceiling from the dining/living room area. I had wanted a log home style post and vertical beam, he put in 2x10's. That's another thing I have to fix. Also note the neighborly pic below. On the pic of the back of the house, there is nothing wrong with the roof. I had to shade the sun to take the pic and it distorted the image.
Thanks, Andy.

 

[Charlesaf3]

funny pic.

Those windows actually don't look bad to me from what I see - just not done yet. Only thing I don't like is how he tucked the housewrap under the nailing flange on top, that's bad flashing. Can't tell if there is some sort of of flashing under the areas that are already wrapped - that's pretty important. Looks like the nailing flange is on the face of the flashing though.

You can take a razor knife and cleanly cut the housewrap back (so that you can put it back) from the windows to check. But I'm pretty sure there's no flashing there.

Which is unacceptable. But easy to fix. You can do it yourself pretty quickly if you want to.

Remember, there should be flashing at all openings under the housewrap (vycor or such) and incorporated into the siding. All going like shingles to direct water to the outside of the house. Let me know if that isn't clear and I'll try to come up with pics.

Not essential depending on wind loads in your area, but I'd want simpson ties at the top of the posts to the rim joist on the porch. Cheap insurance.

Take a look for the Journal of Light Construction details books - they'll be more useful than the code for you to double check things as they have pics. Can buy from amazon or JLC website.

 

[Wayne County Hose]

A couple more.

 

[Charlesaf3]

He's not a big believer in shimming windows is he? Which is fine, but you do have to do the foam for sure, you don't want the fins being all that hold them on.

I'd slap a level on the windows for plumb though.