Window/door question

[Charlesaf3]

Like eddie said, post some pics and we can help you out.

Housewrap shouldn't go under the window fins btw. You never want to channel water towards the house.

Caulk has its role, but waterproofing isn't really it. If you are using caulk to waterproof, you are in trouble. As belt and suspenders its fine.

But its all about proper flashing. Vycor or some such from the bottom. Then a cap over the window. Then lead over the cap. Then siding over the lead. That's how I do it, thats how builders have been doing it for 100s of years (minus the vycor) and that will not leak.

Always channel water out from the house like a fish scale.

Joe Lstiburek at Building Sciences is a genius and has done epic work. His books are expensive, but worth it.

If housewrap isn't up yet, I'd look into rainscreen like the Benjamin Obdyke btw. If your climate isn't pretty dry, rain screen detailing is well worth it. Keeps paint good longer too.

If you are buildning a new house, you MUST have a heat recovery ventilator, or you probably will have mold and interior air issues. We build tight houses, which is great for energy savings, but houses like people need to breath. That's left out 95% of the time I'd say, and its going to be a disaster.

I would never use OSB myself, as an aside. The poor quality you put in will torment you if water gets in, and the savings isn't huge - labor is most of a job. Not a fan of vinyl either, but I'm not going to go there as I don't want to step on peoples toes.

Hope that helps, I appreciate your hydraulic help on here and would like to pay it back.

 

[dmccarty]

Joe Lstiburek at Building Sciences is a genius and has done epic work. His books are expensive, but worth it.

I think highly of Lstiburek and what he has to say. I have seen him defend his opinions in other forums and have been impressed.

Wayne County Hose,

Seem like you might be stalled at the moment. This could be an opportunity. I would hghly recommend Lsitburek's book regarding building in your area. At this stage you might be able to use some of his design details. I found his books to be very clear and detailed.

Getting a good builder is hard. The way we figured, we would be married to the builder for a year or so and living with the result for many years there after. I have met some builders I would not let build a dog house. Others I think might have done good work but we would not mesh well. We found our builder when we visited a house being built from a kit. We met the kit manufactuer at the site and spent maybe 30 minutes talking. We then spent a couple hours talking with the builder whose name is Richard. I went back a week later and talked with Richard for a few more hours.

On the day we met Richard, we were leaving the site, the wife and I looked at each other and we knew we had found our builder. Finding a good builder you can work with is hard. But is paramount you find that builder. He/She is going to be spending LOTS of YOUR money.

Later,
Dan

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Thanks everyone so much for your help. Let me put it this way, if this were a machine, I would tear it apart and start over again, but this is not an option. I tried loading some pics, but now I have a problem with my Kodak program, it won't open. Sometimes life is like an oldies station, the hits just keep on getting better.
Wait until you see the pics. The builder wrapped the first floor, then did just around the windows on the second floor so that he wouldn't have to move his picks, or whatever you call them. If he worked as hard on getting this done as he has worked making excuses, we would be living in it by now. Now, the windows have to come out, new house wrap put up, then the windows installed again.

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Okay, here is a recent pic I have of the house. You can see how he put the Tyvek (I know, it's a different brand) in the upstairs window. I'll get some closeup pics of the windows and post tomorrow.

 

[Charlesaf3]

Can you give a bigger picture? Or one where the window is more of the frame? I can't make out useful details from that I fear.

Pictures of the deck structure from underneath, towards the ledger and towards the rim, would also be good.

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Charles, I'll do so tonight. That was just the best pic I had on my computer at this time.
Thanks, Andy.

 

[tommu56]

Andy I have a kodak camera and hate the software I just copie files in windows explorer from the camera (looks like a usb drive) to windows explorer to my hard drive.
You might have to stop kodak software from poping up when you plug camera in but i dont rember how i did it. but it couldent have been to hard if i fugered it out.

tommu

 

[CurlyDave]

Looking at that picture, there is another thing I would check. That is the detail of the posts under the porch.

Those posts either need to be pressure treated or be on post bases which keep them a certain distance above grade (depends on local code). I can't see the bases from the picture, but it sure doesn't look like they are far enough above grade to prevent termites.

 

[EddieWalker]

Like the others have mentioned, the porch looks like it might be interesting.

That top window looks like he took some strips of house wrap and used it as some sort of weird liner before putting in the window. It's hard to tell, but it looks rough, and kind of like he cut it off of the roll. I can't imagine why he didn't wrap the upstrairs, nor can I comprehend how he plans to waterproof the bottom half of house wrap? If you get any rain or moisture at all, it's all going behind the house wrap and staying there.

Do the dormers have flashing to keep water out at the junction where they meet the roof? Are they real dormers? or are they built on top of the roof for looks?

Without knowing square footage or details, it's easy to assume that you have allot of money into it. I would seriously consider my advice to hire a home inspector to go through every inch of the place.

For grins and giggles, post pics of all the details and we'll give you a list of things to look for and what is and/or might be wrong. The problem with our advice is that we're not there and might lead you on goose chases, or cause you more worry then you really needed.

Eddie

 

[Charlesaf3]

Good point Eddie, I'd missed that - I sure don't see any step flashing on the dormers. Just putting the housewrap down under the shingles is NOT enough.

I'm not as big on home inspectors though - found a lot of them who weren't that impressive. I'd pay a good contractor to come out and give his opinion.