On Tuesday, August 6, 2013 10:10:18 AM UTC-4, HerHusband wrote:
I have a house that I swear was designed and built by an idiot.

It is now 22 years old and literally falling apart at the seams

The house is build on a cement slab, the slab extends out from the

foundation on two sides (side and back of house) and is level with the

foundation. This means that the sill of the house is sitting at the

same level as the "outside" slab so when it rains the water runs down

the house, hits the slab and rolls under the sill and rots out the

sill, the siding, and the trim that have all been installed down to

the slab. I hope this is understandable I have added pictures below.

Now I have removed the rotting trim, siding, etc and can see rot of

the sill board happening. What can I do BEFORE I replace the siding

and trim to keep water from running under the siding and trim and

rotting it AGAIN and further rotting out the sill board, etc?



Wow, that is a dumb design... I'm surprised it has lasted this long.



My in-laws house had a similar problem, where the basement extended out

under the front and rear porches. As you would expect, water leaked in on

the porches and rotted the sills, joists, and beams supporting the house.

We solved it by doing away with the porches and extending the house out

to the edge of the foundation.



http://www.mountainsoftware.com/proj...009porches.htm



You could probably do something similar by extending your house out to

the edge of the slab.



If you don't want to add square footage, you might be able to cut the

slab back an inch or two from the wall (as close as you can get with a

concrete saw). Then you could add strapping to the outside of the walls

so your siding could overlap the new edge of the slab. I would remove

remaining part of the slab outside and regrade the yard away from the

house. Or pour a new patio at a lower level, sloping away from the house.



That last part is the key. Just extending the house out over the
rest of the slab won't solve the problem, because the wood would still
be right next to soil. And it would seem a lot simpler to just get rid
of the slab and re-grade instead of extending the house out.
The only unknown is if the terrain makes that difficult or impossible
for some reason.