Wood Rot Repair in San Diego: Don’t Ignore Decay!

Wouldn’t it be nice if prob­lems just went away?

Leaks sud­den­ly stopped leak­ing, that flick­er­ing light just stopped flick­er­ing, and your com­put­er stopped telling you that you REAL­LY need to fin­ish a soft­ware update? That’s impor­tant, by the way… You def­i­nite­ly want to do the update.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, stuff doesn’t just stop around the house. The best approach is to tack­le those main­te­nance issues head on, stop­ping prob­lems in their tracks before they grow into big­ger problems.

Wood rot is a prime exam­ple. Espe­cial­ly around the dark­er cor­ners of your home where mois­ture can col­lect and isn’t dried by our San Diego sun­shine, rot can take root and turn healthy wood sur­faces into a soft, crum­bling mess. Con­verse­ly, even in bright, direct sun­shine, wood rot can impact wood that’s not pro­tect­ed by a healthy coat­ing of stain. As we’ve dis­cussed before, the right fin­ish isn’t just there for style: it pro­tects against mois­ture intru­sion and decay.

How to repair sur­faces with wood rot

For a real-life exam­ple, click through the pho­tos above! You’ll see what our process looks like, turn­ing com­pro­mised wood back into a healthy, sound surface.

So, how do you repair wood rot? You real­ly have two pri­ma­ry options:

1. Replace the wood com­plete­ly. Some­times start­ing fresh is the best option, espe­cial­ly if the wood is beyond repair. Depend­ing on the type of wood and where it’s locat­ed, you could replace it with PVC (a non-wood option), or you could replace it with healthy lum­ber. If you go with the lat­ter option, you HAVE to seal the entire piece, front and back (not JUST the exposed side).
2. Patch and repair. Using spe­cial­ized epoxy and wood fillers is a more eco­nom­i­cal option, and per­fect­ly appro­pri­ate if the dam­age isn’t too exten­sive. A skilled car­pen­ter can cut out the dam­aged por­tion and rebuild with a com­bi­na­tion of wood seal­er, new wood, and epoxy. If it’s done cor­rect­ly you’ll nev­er be able to tell the difference. 

Need help with wood repairs and exte­ri­or painting?

Con­tact our team at Chism Broth­ers Paint­ing! We spe­cial­ize in keep­ing our San Diego homes healthy, sound, and beau­ti­ful, just as we have been since 1982.