September 19, 2025
I had the windows in the basement and on the second floor replaced this week. I'd gotten the first floor a few years ago, and it seemed like a good time to get the rest dealt with. Especially seeing as how the old windows hadn't really opened well since I'd bought the place, the seals between the panes had broken in some places, and half of them had mold from water getting into them.
There's one small problem with the new windows that I hadn't anticipated. I have blinds that hang on the inside of the hole the windows sit in. The mounting hardware for them is about an inch deep, and fit with a small amount of space to spare with the old windows. The new windows are a lot thicker than the old ones, and there's only about a quarter inch of half an inch of space left now... so I can't re-hang the blinds. I need to figure out what to do about that one. Preferably something that doesn't involve buying new blinds for all the upstairs rooms.
But now on to the big one. My house was put together in 1999 by a developer, which means it was done as quickly and cheaply as possible. You can see it on the inside if you know where to look, some of the corners they cut are apparent. Turns out the exterior is worse.
Back then, they apparently weren't required by code to use plywood to clad the exterior of homes. They were allowed to use... well, it's basically particle board. Maybe twice as thick as the backing of an Ikea bookshelf. But that should be tolerable, right? The Tyvek is still there keeping water off the stuff after all.
Yeah. About that.
Either through incompetence, or malicious cost-cutting that either way they shouldn't have gotten away with: My house isn't wrapped. The window guys spotted that when they were examining the holes they were slotting the new windows into, hey, there's something missing here.
The exterior of my house is basically trash. The particle board is already water-damaged; the waviness of the siding isn't from buckling in the heat and cold cycles around here, it's because it's riding on warped material that's been getting (and staying) wet every time water gets behind the siding.
It's been a fun couple of days, let me tell you. Just lovin' life right now.
To put it bluntly, I can't fix the exterior right now. That's tens of thousands of dollars that I don't have. So I'm doing some damage control, buying some time. They're dropping off materials tomorrow to come on Saturday and Monday to replace basically all the non-siding-non-roof exterior materials. Frieze boards, fascia, eaves, rakes, and gutters. Basically, fix up as much as I can at the top of the house to prevent as much water from getting behind the siding as I can. Postpone the inevitable.
Now, the gutters have been crap for a while. I thought they were just blocked but it turns out they're bowed in the middle, so water basically doesn't flow to the downspouts. Which doesn't help with the water infiltration, ya know? Well, hopefully this buys me a few years -- until I can pay it off at least -- and then I can bite the bullet and get the house re-sided. Which should be loads of fun.
Get off the rental treadmill, they said. Enjoy not having anybody else tell you what you can do with your home. Sounds great, until something like this happens.
