What complete rot

A few weeks ago I noticed a bracket fungus growing on one of the window panes. I was a little worried, and looked it up in a fungus book. Phew, it wasn't the dreaded dry rot, just a wet rot. I figured it probably only went as far as the window frame.

A week later I decided to open the window to let some fresh air through the garage. The window pane dropped out of the frame. I though, ah well, lets see how bad it is. Big mistake!

This evening I spent a good hour scraping out and painting all the rot in the structural timbers of my garage. We had intented to spend the evening installing the new cladding, but I ended up spending my time repairing damage.

The problem is that the previous owner noticed that the weatherboard cladding was rotting. And decided that the best solution was to cover over it with cheap vinyl fake weatherboard. As a result the fungus, which was established in the corners, decided to venture out into the structural timbers as well.

As a result, I've decided to fix the garage up properly. This means pulling off all the vinyl, pulling off all the rotted weatherboards and fixing the frame. As I delved deeper into the garage I came to the realisation that the previous owner was definitely from the if it ain't visibly broke, don't fix it school of house maintanance (I am now quite scared of what I'll find under the house cladding). The roof leaked into the wall space, so he nailed some plywood over that to hide it (this wasn't just to sell the house, the plywood itself has been there at least 5 years and badly rotten too). The corners have all rotted away completely, so he replaced them with some pine(!) and nailed some cement sheet over the top. And when that started looking tatty he nailed more cladding over the top.

Thankfully, after spending a good hour tonight I've removed and replaced the problems on one corner and 2 sides. We should be able to attach some of the cladding tomorrow after I've restored the drainage trench around the outside.

I'm going to replace the two small glass windows with a double glazed polycarbonate window the full length of the window space. (I'm using twinwall polycarbonate mainly because then I don't need a strong frame for it, and because I am planning to put an airconditioner in the garage for those cold winters and the height of summer). I'm beginning to think that despite all the claims of the passive solar mob a well insulated window on the south side is pretty good. In summer it doesn't let any hot sunlight in, in winter it gets a lot of light from the sky - particularly if it is overcast. It also suits my garage layout a lot better :)

I've now installed all the power into the garage and had steve check it over and do the paperwork. It's nice to have all my bench tools ready to go at a flick of a switch rather than requiring me to rummage around looking for the extension cord.