Dry rot and termite damage
Dry Rot, Wood Rot and Termite Damage Repair in San Jose and the South Bay
Dry rot and termite damage rarely show up as their own job. They turn up once a wall gets opened for something else, a stucco repair, a siding removal, a window replacement, and the framing or sheathing behind it turns out to be too soft for a fastener to hold, or hollowed out by termites. We repair that wood, cut back to sound material and rebuilt to the same standard the rest of the wall is held to, whatever the cause was.
Free estimates. Two year warranty against water intrusion on the exterior stucco assembly. CSLB #1044105, Class B and C-35. Se habla español.
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- CSLB #1044105, Class B and C-35
The signs of wood rot and termite damage
A few signs usually show up before anyone opens the wall. Wood that gives when a screwdriver is pressed into it instead of resisting. Paint bubbling or peeling in one spot with nothing else wrong nearby. A windowsill or door frame that has started to sag. Fascia or soffit that has gone spongy at the edge. Siding or trim that looks fine from a distance and soft up close.
By the time damage like this is visible from outside, it usually extends further behind the wall than the visible spot suggests. That is why an estimate for wood repair includes opening the area up rather than sizing it from what shows on the surface.
Dry rot versus termite damage, and why the repair is the same
Dry rot is decay. A fungus gets into wood that has stayed wet for too long, usually because water found its way behind the stucco or siding and had nowhere to drain, and it breaks the wood down from the inside until it is soft, crumbly or hollow. Termite damage is different. An insect has eaten the wood itself, and the two are found together often enough on the same wall that a crew opening a wall is looking for both.
From the outside the two often look alike. Soft wood is soft wood, whether a fungus broke it down or an insect hollowed it out. Telling them apart usually means pulling the material back and looking at it, not guessing from a photograph.
Here is the part that matters for what happens next. Whether the cause was moisture or an insect, the repair is the same: cut back to sound wood, replace what will no longer hold a fastener, and close the wall back up correctly so the same failure does not start again.
We repair the structure. We do not treat or exterminate termites, and if a termite problem is still active, treating it is a licensed pest control company's job, not ours.
What a rotted wood or termite repair involves
A repair starts with removing whatever is covering the damaged area, stucco, siding or trim, back far enough to see where sound wood starts. Anything that crumbles under a pry bar or no longer holds a nail comes out, and rotted wood gets replaced with new framing, sheathing or plywood tied into the surrounding structure so the repair carries load the way the original framing did.
Our framer and our lead carpenter each bring twenty years in the trade, and the wood work on a dry rot or termite repair is usually theirs to do. Once the wood is sound again, the wall gets closed back up and refinished in whatever exterior material was already there, stucco or siding.
Think you might have wood damage behind a wall? An in person look settles it before anything gets priced.
When a repair becomes a structural upgrade
Cutting rotted or termite eaten framing out sometimes shows the crew more than the piece they came to fix. It can also cross a line the building department cares about: once framing gets exposed for a repair like this rather than a small patch, some cities use that moment to require a structural upgrade on top of the wood repair itself.
Whether that applies here depends on the city and how much framing actually gets exposed, and it gets confirmed before the proposal is written, not after. The engineering side of that upgrade, what it actually involves and how it gets installed, is covered on multifamily exterior renovation, where the same trigger applies to nearly every building on a property instead of occasionally.
Where dry rot and termite damage turn up
Wood damage is almost never the reason for the first call. It turns up once a wall is already open for something else. Siding removal is one of the ways it gets found, and if your siding just looks tired with no sign of rot, termites or wood damage, siding repair and replacement covers that on its own. Stucco repair uncovers the same thing from the inside of a cracked or bulging wall. See stucco repair.
Window and door replacement can turn up the same damage, since setting a new unit means opening the wall around the old one. See window replacement and entry and patio door replacement.
On multifamily work, the wood repair step gets built into the schedule before demo even starts, since siding tear-off almost always finds it. Siding removal across a San Jose property uncovered plywood, insulation, termite damage and dry rot that all needed rebuilding before a new stucco system went back on, with structural upgrades required on every building in that project. See multifamily exterior renovation.
Permits for wood repair
A small, contained repair, replacing a section of trim or a piece of sill plate, usually does not need a permit. Opening a wall and exposing framing more broadly is a different category, and it is the point at which some cities require the structural upgrades described above rather than a straight repair. Requirements vary by city and by scope. We confirm with your local building department before we quote.
How a wood repair estimate works
Photos help for a first read on scope, but wood damage is one of the hardest categories to size up from a picture, because what shows on the surface is rarely the full extent of it. Most wood repairs get an in person walkthrough first.
If the repair opens up more wall than the original estimate assumed, you find out before it goes back together, not after. The same approval step used on every stucco job here applies to wood repair too. See how that works on stucco repair, and for the full run of a job start to finish, see the full five step process.
The warranty on repaired wood
Once repaired framing or sheathing gets closed back up under new exterior stucco, that assembly carries the two year warranty against water intrusion, material and labor. Wood repair does not carry that warranty on its own, and if the wall closes back up under siding instead of stucco, the wood repair is priced and covered under the terms in your written proposal. Full terms are in writing before work starts.
Where we repair wood rot and termite damage
Most of this work happens on homes and apartment buildings across Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa counties, concentrated in the South Bay and the Peninsula. See the full list of cities. Wood repair is usually one part of a larger exterior project, up to a full exterior refresh, from demo to paint.
Questions
Questions people ask about this work
If yours is not here, ask us on the phone. It is a better use of your time than guessing.
How do you tell how far the damage runs before you open the wall?
You do not, precisely. What is visible sets the minimum, not the maximum, so the estimate names the area we can see and the approval step that covers whatever turns up behind it. Wood repair is the category most likely to be re-scoped once a wall is actually open, which is why the approval step matters more here than anywhere else.
If I have an active termite problem, should pest control come before or after your repair?
Pest control should go first, or at minimum have the treatment scheduled before the wall closes back up. Once that side is handled, we cut out the damaged wood and rebuild.
What happens if wood rot or termite damage gets left alone?
Neither one stops on its own. Rot keeps breaking the wood down as long as the moisture source is still there, and termites keep working while the wood stays soft enough to chew through. The longer either sits behind a wall, the more of the framing loses the ability to hold a fastener, and a repair that could have stayed small can end up needing more of the wall opened up to fix.
Will you repair wood damage without doing a full stucco or siding job?
Yes. A contained repair, a section of sill plate, a piece of fascia, a soft spot of sheathing, is priced and repaired on its own when that is all the job needs.
If the same wall gives out again, who decides whether it is warranty work?
If it traces back to water intrusion in an assembly that carries the two year warranty, the repair is covered under those terms, material and labor. If the original repair closed up under siding instead of stucco, or the new damage has a different cause, it gets assessed on its own and handled under whatever your written proposal specifies. Full terms are on our warranty page.
Related work
Other things we do on the same house
Free estimate
Get the wood repaired right, not just closed back up.
A soft windowsill, paint bubbling in one spot, or a wall already open from another job. Tell us what you are seeing and we will tell you what it will take to make it sound again.
Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 5:00pm. Se habla español.
CSLB #1044105, Class B and C-35. Two year warranty against water intrusion on exterior stucco.