On top of living in our kitchen chaos, I felt the need to get our home inspected for termites. We live in termite country and it’s not a question of if you have them, it’s you probably have them and let’s just get a damage check-up. Now I swear I saw a termite in my guest bath, trying to burrow away into a corner. Even though they destroy our homes here, I didn’t actually know what one looked like. My first thought was a crazy looking spider so I did what any modern person does and Googled “termite” and exactly what I saw appeared on my screen. However, I was told by 2 inspectors that my sighting was a soldier termite and that seeing one is practically impossible. In fact, it’s what they do for a living and they’ve only seen one a few times. My third inspector told me it was possible, but maybe he was just being nice 🙂
So yes, we have termites. Damage is not too bad and luckily we don’t need to tent. Here’s the kicker, one of the inspectors brought to my attention that the termites aren’t the only thing destroying my house. The dreaded wood rot has taken hold of my patio cover. When we moved into our home, the posts of our cover were already rotting away due to continuous sprinkler spray. The previous owners replaced them before we moved in and we knew one day we’d have to do it again, but this was different. The overhead beams are the ones that are rotting away. Thankfully, my inspector pointed out a few beams that were in extremely bad shape and told me it would be easy to DIY the fix. Double thankfully, my parents were coming for a visit the following week.
My father and I took a trip to the hardware store and picked up 2 Douglas Fir replacement beams and a can of primer. He began by sawing the old beams into 2 feet sections and then using a hammer to knock them down. After both beams were completely down, we took pliers and broke out the old nails that were still hanging from the smaller top slats.
My father then measured how wide the new beams needed to be and of course, our new ones were slightly too wide. Nothing can be too easy right?! So he jury-rigged a sawhorse and began to saw down the beam until it was the correct size. Next, we covered it with a coat of outdoor primer and let it dry (it will be my job to paint it afterward). He then shimmied one side onto the cross beam and had me hold the other side up in line with the metal joist hangers. He then went to the front end of the beam and began to hammer it into the hanger. It slid in perfectly. We followed these same steps for the other beam and bingo, my patio cover looked great.
In fact, the primer is almost the same color as the paint so, at first glance, nothing looks out of place and this gives me some leeway in finding the time to put the final coat of paint on. We know one day the whole cover will need replacing. At that point, we’ll switch it out for vinyl so we never have to think about wood rot again, but for now, this is a great facelift. I have home projects coming from every angle these days so it’s nice to know that replacing the beams was not the gigantic hassle I was expecting.
