Robert Montoya
10-17-2011, 09:23 AM
I'm not the handiest guy and most of the terms I use I've acquired from this forum, so here goes:
Our house was built 6 years ago and we have hardiplank fiber board siding. No problems other than over 1 first story vinyl window in the house. As you'll see from the pictures, there is a seam (butt joint?) directly over the top left corner of one of the windows, another directly over the center of the window and another just above and to the right of that. When it rains and is windy we have water that drips from the inside top sill of that window onto the bottom inside sill. We have to put towels down on the bottom sill to collect it. Also, I've noticed that the some of the planks in the hardwood floors under that window have started to curl very slightly.
We know there is no WRB, such as Tyvek on the home. The builder didn't have any put on any home in the entire development. The reason they gave was because the home needed to breath and they felt it didn't allow that. Funny thing is they had their personal home built in our neighborhood and wrapped it with Tyvek. They are also building a more expensive development adjacent to ours and all of those homes are wrapped with Tyvek. From what I can tell there is no flashing under butt joints. Just the caulking that as you can see, has started to crack and separate.
My question is in terms of fixing the problem myself. Would it be better to recaulk or slide flashing under the boards where those butt joints are? Additionally, I've been told it's not standard practice to have butt joints directly over a window. Any other recommendations? Thanks.
Our house was built 6 years ago and we have hardiplank fiber board siding. No problems other than over 1 first story vinyl window in the house. As you'll see from the pictures, there is a seam (butt joint?) directly over the top left corner of one of the windows, another directly over the center of the window and another just above and to the right of that. When it rains and is windy we have water that drips from the inside top sill of that window onto the bottom inside sill. We have to put towels down on the bottom sill to collect it. Also, I've noticed that the some of the planks in the hardwood floors under that window have started to curl very slightly.
We know there is no WRB, such as Tyvek on the home. The builder didn't have any put on any home in the entire development. The reason they gave was because the home needed to breath and they felt it didn't allow that. Funny thing is they had their personal home built in our neighborhood and wrapped it with Tyvek. They are also building a more expensive development adjacent to ours and all of those homes are wrapped with Tyvek. From what I can tell there is no flashing under butt joints. Just the caulking that as you can see, has started to crack and separate.
My question is in terms of fixing the problem myself. Would it be better to recaulk or slide flashing under the boards where those butt joints are? Additionally, I've been told it's not standard practice to have butt joints directly over a window. Any other recommendations? Thanks.