In many homes, and especially in the moist Pacific Northwest, dry rot is a concern. And add to that the fact that this home was 113 years old, had layers upon layers of finishes and no real rhyme or reason to a lot of what was done and you’ll almost guarantee there will be some dry rot.
We actually were fortunate. The front porch was almost completely dry rotted out. No ventilation, no pressure treating (a process which didn’t even begin until 1900) and porch deck boards that were laid tight to each other led to dry rot and dangerous conditions on most of the front porch. It’s also on the north side of the house, which further adds to the problem.
The second area of the house that had dry rot was the bathroom/utility room. No real surprise here, either. Most anywhere there is moisture and little to no ventilation is a perfect place for dry rot to develop.
Plus, the bathroom sink leaked (the water was turned off at the street, if you need a hint) and the bathroom floor was springy/spongy, to say the least.
At the front porch, we started feeling that we would have to replace the decking as well as the joists. Since it wasn’t ventilated, we decided to replace it all with pressure treated joists and Trex decking, which allows for ventilation between the boards. We ended up not being able to save the original wood columns, but found some new ones at a local building supply store.
At the bathroom, we originally thought we would just pull up the flooring and replace the floor deck. However, after removing that, we found the entire floor deck had dry rot and most of the supporting joists also had problems. So we ended up replacing the entire floor structure, decking and floor. We also added more supports under the new joists.
This was probably the most extensive part of the remodel changes and we took the opportunity to rearrange the access and arrangement of the rooms.
Next: how do you increase energy efficiency in a very very old house?