What I see in the picture looks like failed tub enclosure walls
and/or leaking plumbing which caused water damage. IF you can
push an awl or knife through the wood, it has to come out. If a
knife blade or awl only penetrates a 1/2" or so, leave it alone,
Bleach and treat everything, sister onto anything that needs a new
surface to be in plane, and worry about better interior prep of
the tub surround. If you know you had termites and the wood is
mush, the rules change. If there was an issue with the stucco,
you could attach it to framing with plaster washers on the outside
with minimal repair.

--
______________________________
Keep the whole world singing . . . .
DanG (remove the sevens)




"TomYoung" wrote in message
...
On May 5, 7:47 am, RicodJour wrote:
On May 5, 9:57 am, TomYoung wrote:



On May 3, 8:30 pm, RicodJour wrote:
On May 3, 1:28 pm, wrote:

And regardless, I don't see how you can remove all the
studs along a
wall and then leave the exterior stucco of that wall
attached to
nothing. If I was going to attempt to salvage this without
redoing
stucco, I'd at least use construction adhesive to bond the
new studs
to the wire/stucco backside.

A lot of construction adhesive. The studs most likely won't
be in the
same place as the old studs, they'll probably be sistered
next to an
existing stud, and the back of the stucco is unlikely to be
smooth and
straight.

To the OP: What you're attempting to do is risky. Even if
you do
things "perfectly" the stucco might still crack. If it's in
very good
condition and was reasonably thick stucco, I'd try to save
it, too.
I'd have to eyeball the situation to determine if the added
difficulty
in working around the existing stucco made saving the stucco
worthwhile.

Houses in parts of the country were built with clapboards
directly on
the studs when most of the country was sheathing the
framing. Not
sure what part of the country you're in, but your stucco
construction
might be not uncommon for your area. Not having sheathing on
the back
of the stucco actually makes sense in some ways, and can
actually be
beneficial. Letting a wall dry out to the inside as well as
the
outside helped reduce decay and mold growth.

From the sound of it you're on a slab, right? If so you can
deal with
the rotted bottom plate easily enough. You should
investigate the
house construction some more to find out what is providing
the racking
resistance (google it). Normally the sheathing does the
work, but let-
in braces were in vogue for a while. If your house has
neither, and
you're in an 'interesting' area subjected to hurricanes,
tornadoes,
earthquakes (damn, I'm depressing myself) or the like, you
may want to
look into upgrading.

You don't have to remove the entire stud, just the rotted
part. Use a
circular saw set to the correct depth as already posted, and
make a
nice square cut. Make some more in the piece to be removed
and then
use a chisel, sawzall, Fein Multimaster 636, angle grinder,
and
patience and remove the sections so you don't stress those
mesh
nails. Then use the angle grinder with a metal cutoff wheel.
A
diamond one is the best IMO for all around use and it makes
trimming
back wayward nails a breeze. Then you'll cut two pieces of
treated 2x
- one a full length stud, and the other to fill in where you
removed
the piece. The remaining part of the existing stud secures
the stucco
to the framing and the new pieces provide the support. Glue
and screw
the wood together with appropriate fasteners. As noted
liberally
applied construction adhesive will aid in fastening the
stucco to the
new framing. The building paper is in the way of the
adhesive, so
it'll have to be removed where the stud repair parts go.

R

I spoke to a building inspector in my town (San Francisco Bay
area)
about this construction and he said that given the age of the
construction (pre-1975 is all I know at this point) that the
lack of
sheathing may have met code at the time. The area I'm working
in is
an addition to the existing house (built 1941) so I'll need to
truck
up to the county seat and do the research to see if it was
permitted.
(Not that it means much after all this time.)

Given the damage to the subfloor and sole plate I'm looking at
removing about a dozen studs, including a corner, to get this
put back
together properly. I'm thinking that I'll build a couple of
supporting walls outside the structure to hold the roof up
while I
attempt the repair. I'm going to attempt to keep the stucco
intact in
all this, but I don't know if I'll be successful in that
regard. I'm
on a perimeter foundation and will need to replace portions of
the mud
sill and edge joist while I'm down there.

Ah, so you're not on a slab. I was wondering how you were
planning to
replace the sill, rim joist and bottom plate from the interior -
still
am. Removing the bad sections of stud is simple compared to
removing
the other stuff. Doing that without messing up the stucco is
going to
be very difficult, if not impossible. How can you replace a rim
joist
that's covered by stucco? You can remove the rotted section in
pieces, but you really don't want to install your rim joist and
in 16"
long pieces.

Post some pictures on one of the free hosting sites and post the
link
here. Let's see what you're dealing with.

R

http://home.comcast.net/~tomyoung1/BR/Bathroom.html

Tom Young