Has anyone ever repaired a Tudor Style Home?
What is on the house now is 4×8 1/2″ sheets of a fiberboard material(over 1/2″ sheeting) with a stucco texture on it. The batons are 1×8 rough sawn cedar.
There is alot of water damage to the cedar and along the bottom of the stucco panels. All of the caulking is cracked with more caulk piled on along with a little more caulk on top of that. Arounf the windows is real bad. The door is even worse. You can even see the verticle seams on the 1st row of panels between batons. Filled with caulk.
This side of the house takes the brunt of the harsh weather.
I replaced the front door last year and put up new stucco board and cedar. Im just not happy about the prospects of what kind of condition it will be in in another 30-50years.
He called me to replace whatever needs replaced so he can repaint the house. I suggested we take a long term view of the situation and come up with a plan to repair it once and for all. So redoing this whole side is what Im thinking.
My question is what is the best method? Hardie panels, miratech 1×8 w/aluminum flashing under the panels and over the 1x? Kinda like T111?
Replies
Been there...
Replaced all the material on a 4000 sq ft. Tudor style home. From what you describe, you've already got water penetrating the walls in all probability. It's time to get serious.
In my case, I went with Certainteed Weatherboard fiber cement panels. The 4x8 stucco panels look pretty good (better than Hardie). We also used their thicker FC trim boards in place of the cedar battens. Not as thick, but hardly noticeable after painting. You could easily go with other material for the battens, though I'd skip the cedar. Check out posting here: 102288.6
FWIW, there's a class action lawsuit settlement on the fiber panels that were manufactured by several companies. It's likely yours are included. Unfortuately, the process to collect any dollars can take over a year. If you replace the material before they inspect and settle the claim, you get nothing.
Oh, forgot to mention that residing will give you an opportunity to get rid of those seems entirely. IMHO, it's real hack installation to leave seams like those when proper panel spacing would have allowed the battens to cover them.
thanks, I will investigate the lawsuit angle forsure.
With your installation, what type of flashing did you use for your horizontal seams and what other methods did you use (caulking, flashing, etc) to ensure water does not get behind this product?
Here are some sites to read on the lawsuit. I decided it was not worth my time since the issues I was seeing were not all that bad and the identification and inspection requirements are a PITA.
http://www.sidingid.com/faqs.asp
http://www.sidingsolutions.com/pages/classtat.htm
The good news with FC is that it won't rot like the fiberboard products as there's no food for mold, etc. Like any masonry material it is porous and absorbs water and then dries. You do not paint the backside so that it may dry should any moisture make it past your installation details. (FYI, I had waste cut pieces of this material out in the rain and buried in snow for a year with zero delamination or freeze thaw damage when I finally picked them up, so don't believe anyone who tells you that's a big worry.)
The best case scenario would be to use a full rain screen installation like you would use for real stucco. For more info look on this board or here: http://www.buildingscienceconsulting.com/designsthatwork/cold/profiles/boston.htm
In lieu of a full rain screen approach, the FC manufacturers allow installation directly over housewrap on top of sheathing. I would recommend using one of the corrugated wrap products to facilitate even better drying than standard wrap. All panel seams in our case were caulked and covered with battens which were then caulked top-only in the case of horizontal seams. A purist may have included a joint with flashing at the horizontals, but that would have made the horizontal battens look a little funky. Even on the crappy fiber board I pulled off, I did not see any rot behind the battens, so I think it's a reasonable approach. Any moisture that makes it behind the FC will either make it's way down the wrap to the bottom flashing or will soak into the back of the FC and dry over time.
We used conventional flashing details and adhesive sealing tape around windows and doors, with more standard flashing at the bottom over the foundation.
IMHO, good flashing and install practices are always the key.
Edited 5/21/2008 2:23 pm ET by WindowsGuy
"IMHO, good flashing and install practices are always the key."
Agreed.
Thanks WindowsGuy you are a gem.