Jessie: I think you should update the blog about the termites.I have nothing to say that doesn't include how grumpy and pregnant I am. No one is going to want to read that
Jeffrey: here's what I want to write:
Jeffrey: Title: TERMITES!
Jeffrey: Blog: TERMITES! WE HAVE F-ING TERMITES!!! I HATE THIS HOUSE
Jeffrey: The End
Jessie: Fine. I'll write about the termites.
As part of the kitchen project we've included insulating / air-sealing the "Cold Room" in the basement. A little tip to anyone who's buying a house, open the fuse box and see how things are labeled. We looked at the house in the late summer and purchased in early fall. The house wasn't very cold in August, however on the fuse box there's a room labeled "Cold Room". I've never seen a fuse labeled more correctly. This section of the basement was previously uninsulated, walls and ceiling, and mostly covered with just barn board.
Jeff started in on the demo of the "Cold Room" to prepare for the Icynene installation with his trusty Fubar. It wasn't long before The House threw another surprise at us.
The sill between the foundation and the vertical studs holding up one wall of the house crumbled away and the majority of 3 of the studs had vanished. A frantic trip to the lumber store ensued to buy new supports to shore up the wall of our house.
We followed this up with a liberal application of Bora Care to make the house unattractive to termites in the future.
The depressing part about this: examination of another wall showed that there was also termite damage, but a previous owner had already repaired it. I don't recall anything in the seller's disclosure about termite damage...
Since my time machine is in the shop, I have no way to know if we would have bought the house knowing about termite damage, but I wish we'd known 3 years ago to start looking for it. I wonder how much damage we could have stopped just in that time.
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