More this old house pics
Added 2024-10-20 23:21:20 +0000 UTCI took a hundred pictures of this project as I worked along, but they were all on my old phone. I couldn't get it to connect by USB or to Google Drive to offload them, so they are lost to me for the time being. But I still have a little soffit area that isn't torn out yet, which gives you a good idea of how bad the rot was.
Keep in mind that this was all encased in metal, so from the outside, it looked perfectly fine. Inside, the drywall was discoloring, but no water ever appeared in the house, so I didn't take it seriously.
As you can see, this was BAAAAAAAAD! It was also hidden under layers of old repairs meant to hide it. Never buy an old farm house without having it inspected or you will be dealing with this problem. People hide this by wrapping it in metal or plastic so it looks pretty. That balcony had so many layers of tar and roll-out roofing that I am surprised the weight of it didn't bring the ceiling down. They never addressed the wood rot; they just buried it under another layer of sealer and trapped that moisture inside, slowly eating the wood away.
When the balcony became too bad, they built a frame out of 2x4s over the original balcony and put down a new floor, which they then started to tar and seal in the hopes that nobody would ever discover the problem.
