This is the first post in a series for the front porch decking and siding replacement at the Front Cabin. Here I’ll cover the demolition of the porch decking and the existing board and batten siding. Why? Let me show you.
Well we’re back at the front cabin. If you remember, I painted the exterior and sealed the front porch a few years back. One thing I noticed while painting was that the siding at the front wall was a little soft. That’s a likely sign of wood rot. I decided to ignore it at the time and add siding replacement to the to-do list for a later date.
Since then, the wood rot has gotten worse AND we have a mice and rat problem I can’t seem to fix. *sigh* I highly suspect mice are getting into the house from underneath the deck. On top of that, the deck boards need to be replaced. So, it’s time to get to work!
Here is the front porch and siding before demo. I know it looks decent, but looks can be deceiving. Plus, I’m really freaking tired of catching mice in the cabin! Time to find their access holes and fix them.
Here is a closer look at the old board and batten siding. This is true board and batten, meaning it’s made of actual 1×12 flat vertical boards with 1×3 vertical trim (or batten) that covers the board joints. You can’t really see how rotten the boards were, but believe me, they were soft, especially along the bottom.
Demolition Porch Decking:
It makes most sense to start demo with the decking as that butts up against the siding. The boards were screwed to the porch joists, so I simply used a drill to unscrew each board. Some are in decent enough condition to be reused, so I tried to salvage what I could.
Here is a progress photo of the removing decking. I had suspected mice and rats were getting into the house from under the deck but was entirely surprised to see all these mounds of earth from burrowing rats and voles making their homes under here! Yikes!
Occasionally the decking screws wouldn’t come out with a regular drill. I found this tool, called a pallet buster, worked great to pop decking off the joists. To use this, straddle a joist with one leg of the tool on either side of the joist. Slide the legs under the decking you want to remove. Pull back. The leverage of the tool on the joist pops the decking right off. It’s easy and fast. Just know that it’s meant to get the job done but necessarily salvage the decking. I only use this when the decking screws are too stripped or rusty to remove.
Rats!
With all the decking off, it was obvious that the joists need to be replaced as well. Here is the demo’d front porch deck. Look at all that earth! That’s all from rats and voles making their homes under the deck. Ugh!
Now that the old deck is gone, I can finally see where the mice and rats were getting into the house. See those holes that I circled in red in the photo below? Someone had very poorly installed that half-buried crawlspace vent years ago and it’s been letting in mice since! Ok well, another item on the list to fix…
Demolition Old Board and Batten Siding:
Old-school board and batten siding is exactly as the name describes. It consists of simple 1×12 flat boards nailed vertically to the wall studs. Then 1×3 vertical batten trim is nailed over the larger board joints. It’s not a very weather-proof or air tight siding, but in mild climates like ours it can last a long time.
Too bad that time is up! There is enough wood rot and holes to justify a full replacement at the front wall. I got to work with a large crow bar to pry off the batten trim first. I like to keep a variety of crow bar sizes on hand, small, medium, and large. They all come in handy for different situations.
Here I am prying off the trim with the large crow bar. You can see that I’m not a big burly construction dude. I’m small person but try to keep myself reasonably fit and healthy so I can do projects like these. If I can, you can too!
I always wear safety glasses when demoing. You might want some ear plugs too. It’s surprising how loud loosening a nail can get.
Here is the siding with the batten trim removed. From here, I simply pry off each vertical board. I thought about saving these boards but they tested positive for lead paint. So I dropped them off with our local county disposal service.
This is the exposed framing after the demolition of the board and batten siding. I plan to upgrade the wall insulation, so I threw the old pink fiberglass stuff up on the attic to help out there. It’s better than throwing it away if it’s still in decent shape.
That concludes the demolition of the porch decking and the siding. Now that we’ve torn things apart, it’s time to start rebuilding. Let me show you how I fixed that rat hole in the foundation.
Repair Concrete Footing:
With the siding removed, you can see how horribly installed that crawlspace vent was! Nothing was supporting the top. I was able to simply bend it down flat. The bottom of the vent had been cast into a small section of concrete. However, when I hit that section of concrete with a sledge hammer, I could tell by the bounce that that section was not connected to the rest of the foundation.
That small section of concrete came out pretty easily. Here you can see the smooth vertical edges of the original concrete foundation. I spliced a sill plate section and added sill anchorage bolts in preparation to fill that missing foundation area with concrete.
Here is that hole now filled with concrete. I mixed the concrete on the dryer side so that it was not soupy and had little slump. That way I could use boards and each side of the stem to hold the concrete easily in place while it cured.
Next post I’ll show you how I replaced the old board and batten siding with a better system but kept the board and batten look. I’ll also address the crawlspace venting situation now that I filled in the old vent in the concrete stem.
Ah, I am glad we found the rat and mice holes, and I am SOOO looking forward to living mice-free!
