A Huge Can of Worms, I Mean Ants

This past week I framed a small landing and stair case in a carport, as well as repair some water damaged board and baton siding, well I thought it was some water damage.  Further inspection revealed ants, a lot of ants, like seriously a lot of ants.

Beneath the siding I discovered several ant nests and a two by ten that had been eaten down to the size of a two by four.

So a simple repair job turned into a much more involved structural replacement job.

First step finding out just how bad the damage was.  This meant digging back into the house removing siding and sheathing to see how far the ants had gone, lucky they did not go far and had only damaged one structural member (all be it an important one).

Having found all the damage I could then go about repairing it.  No small task.  A temporary wall went up to take the load off the roof rafters so the beam could be removed and a new one installed.

After the new beam went in the temporary wall came down new plywood sheathing went up followed by an air barrier, strapping and finally the new siding.

Later this year I will be going back to paint all the new siding that was installed after I replaced the beam.

Was a good project, fun to do.  Involved a few sustainable solutions (deconstruction instead of demolition,  recycled materials, and materials that can be recycled).  Now on to the next one.

Cheers
Hans Christopher