In too deep to turn back now... now what?

Repair help for the do-it-yourselfer.
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Do it herselfer
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2017 9:29 am

Hello All,

I am a pretty handy person and may have gotten in a little too deep but can't turn back now. I'll start with a little back story then ask a couple questions. I will have pictures attached for reference in a second post.

Edited to add the link to my onedrive folder with all the reno pictures:
https://1drv.ms/a/s!Aic1kQhQgOt1gfpm21cfdKLN_fxEZw

My husband and I moved to Waco, TX and decided we would renovate a 1994 Clayton Homes Mobile Home that is on his parents property and has been being used as storage and an office. We sold our 1999 Fleetwood because it had been moved 5! times and really didn't think it would handle another move well.

So the house we are renovating has never been re-leveled as far as anyone knows since it was installed, we had it leveled in January 2017. Some of the supports were leaning at an almost 45 degree angle before the leveling. There was a drainage problem that has been fixed. Had the leveling checked last month and it is still sitting pretty. The second thing that was a risk is that there had been a pretty bad water heater leak that went undetected for a while. We turned the water off to the house over a year ago and took out the water heater. We knew that we had some repair to do to that part of the house.

To make a long story short I we had the bottom 2x6 replaced on about half the house, I hired a contractor and feel I would have done a better job after getting into it but what is done is done so we are moving on. I had the contractor also remove and replace a bay window and fix some framing around the area where the water heater leak was the worst.

Fast Forward... I have demolished almost everything. We are ready to put it back together. We have replaced sub-floor and are about to re-frame the areas that were taken out.

My question(s)

So originally we had decided to try and save the siding on the house to save money... It looks ugly but most of it is pretty sound. I suppose we can still do this but are now leaning toward replacing it all since we are already in so deep. The contractor cut the siding at 12 inches and covered it with hardie siding with zbar between the siding and the new hardie siding. Now that we are considering replacing it all should we take the hardie siding on the bottom off and put up full panels of siding? If we did this we talked about using it up top under the gutter where there is a current white panel that needs to be replaced. We already bought material to replace that top board but could return it. Is there any benefit to keeping the hardie panel along the bottom along the sil? If we keep the hardie panel along the bottom we would have to cut each piece of siding 12" to fit. At this point we've wasted money and just want to do what makes most sense.

Thanks in advance!

Jennifer
Last edited by Do it herselfer on Fri Nov 03, 2017 12:04 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Mark
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Location: Aberdeen, SD
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Hi Jennifer,

Sorry for the late reply. What a story! I looked over your photos and got a little overwhelmed. By now I suspect you are already making some decisions.

Can you outline your questions one by one and link to the photo in question? I think it might be easier for everyone to help out.
You can't fail if you don't try!
yakima4$
Posts: 83
Joined: Tue Oct 20, 2015 11:02 pm

Regarding siding. From looking at the photos I assume you and or your contractor did not install horizontal blocking between the stud bays at the intersection of the existing siding and the HARDI you installed. If they were installed great, if not it needs to be there for over time those joints will sag in. Plus the siding (both old and new) should be fastened at 6 inches o.c at that horizontal edge/joint.
I would remove all siding and install full height sheets and caulk butt joints with a high end caulk such as Valcum and cover these butt joints with a baton strip. Odd thing about this HARDI panel, it states in the instructions that these joints are not designed to stop the infiltration of water/weather. I know, why make siding and make that statement.
Also install a whole house fan set to run 4hrs per day. This fan should be such as a Panasonic 100 cfm that has a sone rating of 1.5.(sound rating)
Home Depot has these. You would need this fan to get the moisture out of the house. Going from beer can siding to concrete board really helps keep the weather out of the house, Of course with the new siding make sure and support the home 4ft o.c around the perimeter and at jambs studs each side of door and window openings.

Best regards

Ron
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