Will wood rot continue even after the wood is protected from the elements?
I have a family member with a flat roof over a garage. The joist seem to have some damage. If the area is made weather tite again will the wood rot continue or stop were it is? If we need to open up the roof we will be asking for trouble, LOL
Thanks
SteveP.
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Replies
I've been told, and I think I've even read, that once the conditions are removed the rott will stop. When the wood is exterior trim, like wooden windows or fascia boards the paint will not last as long if the wood is more than a little rotten, therefore it will esentially not stop rotting.
Hopefully others will chime in on this.
Mike
Dryrot fungus needs water to grow, but alas, it gets by just fine on very little water. So you need just about perfect watertightness to do any good.
-- J.S.
If the remaining wood is sufficiently strong to support what is needed, then you might consider encapsulating the area with penetrating epoxy. Several suppliers make the stuff. I used some from Rot Doctor ( http://www.rotdoctor.com ) and also some I obtained at a West Marine boat supply store and was happy with each. The prefered method is to clean out the worst of the damaged wood and then use a syringe to inject the epoxy into the remaining damaged area. The Rot Doctor site has some discussion of this at: http://www.rotdoctor.com/house/Hindoor.html The epoxy is fairly expensive, but for a small area can be significantly cheaper than the alternatives...
Steve,
Lots of good info here.
http://www.wood-handbook.com/wood-handbook-chapter-13-3-biodeterioration-of-wood
KK
Most of the time, the rot will stop once you dry it and keep it dry.
but if you don't open the roof there is no way you know how much rot and mold you have and you will be looking at a worse problem eventually. I can't imagine a situation where you have enough rot to know that the leaking roof has done that much damage,a nd not have to tear off a portion of the roof to determine how much to repair. You need to expose it to fix it.
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