Since
buying our house nearly two years ago, I knew there were some places
where the siding was splitting. We have wood tongue and groove sheets of
siding on our house. Over time, the tongues and grooves have split
exposing the underside. As luck would have it, most of the
splits face west where most of our weather comes from. Like so many
other things I've found with our house, it's like leaving a
window open during a storm. What I didn't realize is how
pervasive the splits are. I thought we had two maybe four and a
single tube of caulk would fix it. Nope. I should have bought a
whole case. Actually we should replace our siding, but we're not
ready for that.
Here's an
example of one of the
splits.
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Most of them are
wide enough to require foam insulation, since the caulk won't
effectively cover gaps this
wide.
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Not only did I run out of
caulk, but the foam insulation too. Turned out to be a much bigger
job then I expected. Isn't that always the
case?
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My caulk skills are a
little to be desired. With the completion of
this job, I should be an expert.
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I think one of
the things that held me off from doing this job was worrying about
the color of the caulk. For some reason I thought they only
made
white and clear caulk. After caulking I'd have to find paint to
match and paint over it. When I realized they had brown caulk, that
silly
dilemma went away.
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One split was so
big, I had to fill it with spray foam. I used the window and door
stuff since it's a little flexible.
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So the realization hit
that the entire front of the house is splitting apart. Our house
faces south, so the heating and cooling of the house each
day causes all the boards to
expand and contract. Of course this project had to be bigger then I
anticipated. Still we can't afford to do the
right thing and replace it.
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So we're going to
need some more caulk.
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