I'm pretty sure the door frame is to blame, compounded with the fact that
there was no proper flashing on the deck ledger, and further compounded by
the fact that when the previous owner resided, they just cut around the old
siding (hardboard crap) and put vinyl around it, -- they seem to have
flashed the majority of it ok but just calked at the seams, and that, I
believe, is what caused this. Although it could have been an older problem
yet -- the siding is less than 5 years old -- can this much damage happen in
5 years?

The wood underneath the door is all crap too. Eventually I want to replace
this door -- for now I'll probably just shore it up and seal it like
crazy...

-Tim

"Eric Tonks" etonks@sunstormADD-DOT-COM wrote in message
anews.com...
Check the electric outlet and the left edge of the door frame and sill, it
is noticeable that your rot is right beneath these two items, sounds like
they may be leaking water behind the sheathing and onto your joist and top
plate. Your deck ledger board may be innocent as I don't see damage
further
along. It is good insurance to eliminate all sources of water intrusion.

"Tim Fischer" wrote in message
...
We're building a new deck, and yesterday I removed the old ledger board
from
the old deck and to my horor, discovered that for years, water had been
seeping between this board and the rim joist on the house, and the rim
joist
is now badly rotted. In fact, there's about a 12-18" section that is
all
but not there now, once I poked many holes through it with my finger...

So now I need to know how to go about replacing it, so I can continue on
with the deck. I've googled for info without much luck. The little
info
I
found via google assumes that the rim joist is perpendicular to the
floor
joists, and that it's right over the foundation. In my case, it's
parallel
to the floor joists (and on the gable end of the house), and since it's
a
split-entry house, there is a short (approx 5') wall between this joist
and
the block foundation below.

My questions a

a) do I have to replace this joist as a complete span, or can I cut it
out
and replace the damaged chunk? The posts dealing with the joists right
over
the foundation imply you can just cut out the damaged section, but since
I'm
over a wall, I wasn't sure if this was more structural. For what it's
worth, the wall's top plate is only a single 2x4, not a doubled header
plate
like you'd expect if it were load bearing.

b) What, if anything, do I need to do to brace the house temporarilly
during
this repair? As I have vinyl siding over "build rite", I can get to the
framing reasonably easy from the outside, but both levels of the inside
are
finished and would be a major problem to remove anything down to the
framing
members. The damaged chunk isn't doing anything structurally now, but I
want to make sure I don't have "the walls tumble down" if I remove a
slightly bigger one...

Any advice is greatly appreciated. I"d like to (at least start to)
tackle
this project today, so any info I can get ASAP would be wonderful.

-Tim

P.S. By the way, I'm pretty handy with repairs and with a hammer --
just
never had to tackle anything of this nature before (and hopefully won't
anytime soon after this!