The past several days I’ve been laying low, just doing my hermit thing. Which is to say mostly not doing much of anything at all. I haven’t been keeping up with the neighborhood news, even though it turns out I was the source of the big news. This is the first day I’ve talked to anyone all week. L says I’m going to lose my language skills if I keep it up. Some days it seems it’s too late to worry about that.
Got an early start, because my neighbor L wanted a quick trip to town and asked if I wanted to tag along. And when I showed up, D&L were all “What happened with [Landlady’s] house?”
“Er…how’d you hear about [Landlady’s] house?”
“Oh, J saw it on her Facebook page.”
So I got back from the store. There was a bunch of stuff from Landlady’s barn I’d shoveled into the Jeep trailer, and it needed to go to the neighborhood Dumpster. And while I was going to where I stashed the trailer to hitch up, I met Darrel the Cop driving down the road on his tractor.
“Heard there was a big problem with [Landlady’s] house.”
Yes. Yes, there was. Wasn’t aware it was such general news, though.
At last I arrived at J’s for shit-shoveling. And of course J wants the details. “How’d that happen to [Landlady’s] house?”
So yes. Since everybody knows about it, I guess it isn’t such a big secret anymore. Something bad happened to Landlady’s house.
Something really heartbreakingly bad.
I even know the exact hour it happened. I dropped off the boys Wednesday morning, checked out the house and grounds the way I always do, and everything was fine. There had been heavy snow overnight but the morning temps rose quickly and it all melted very quickly. Runoff was pouring from every roof in the area. In Landlady’s case it was gushing from the scuppers and apparently soaking into the stucco. Add 60 mph wind gusts.
When I came back to get the boys, no more than an hour later…
I need to get all that stuff pulled out and cut or folded up, because Landlady’s gonna want to replace that stucco without much delay. J and I are talking about borrowing D&L’s big flatbed trailer to haul it to the landfill, though I suppose a guy could just dig a big hole with a backhoe…
YIKES!!
Oh man is that going to be a ton of work to fix.
I don’t see any expanded metal lath anywhere. Was the stucco applied directly to the felt? Your mostly dry climate should be fairly forgiving but the detailing still matters, especially expansion joints and flashing around windows/doors.
ouch
R…I expect they used stucco wire & nails. Which usually works. I’m thinking, tho’, there may have been some kind of wind wave or vibration (I’ve heard harmonics develop on my house in a high wind) that persistently worked at the surface to essentially wiggle it loose…next time screw the wire on, maybe. Think about tree placement to disrupt the pattern. Channel the roof run off water further away so it doesn’t splash back against the house…just thoughts & ideas for your consideration.
But yeah, ouch. Several days of ouch. 🙁
Stucco wire and not nearly enough nails, as it turns out.