Flashing - I believe my carpenter made a huge mistake

[alan]

I have a 21 year old 'preserved' wood foundation home & have just replaced the front steps and landing that was over a small 10' X 6' room in the basement. This landing (room) has only two exposed sides as the house has a bit of an L shape to it.

I did have a leaking problem, not with the foundation, but with a shoddy way the original owner/contractor added to the height and width of the concrete deck and steps over the 'room'. He just did a second pour of concrete against the vinyl siding and just sealed around the edges with caulking.

The result was cracking of the concrete allowing water to sit on the top plates & stringers (not preserved) of the room below and rotted them along with some water infiltration because of the lack of flashing.

I had a contractor break up and haul away all the old concrete deck & steps and got competitive quotes to fix the original problem with the downstairs room (waterproofed, sloped & flashed roof etc) and to build a preserved wood deck over, but not touching this room below.

Everything looked fine until I washed the deck off and then realized my basement was leaking badly from the siding directly to the basement. Looking up, I can see the siding from the exposed ceiling of this room downstairs.I can also see the lead flashing on the wrong side of this mess.

The carpenter had flashed the small room with lead, but did it right over the second or third row of siding, allowing water to enter, in particular the inside corner where it appears that this is what is meant to happen with siding, but not if directed to the basement.

My understanding since yesterday with a lot of research and thought, the flashing should have gone at least under the last row of siding. By the way, the room below was built with a slight pitch to allow water to drain off.

I feel that I am not the expert, the carpenter is and should be responsible for fixing the problem whether or not it was done properly before. He certainly did know what flashing was all about, but faile to see the whole picture. Easy to see it now when the problem presents itself.

Can anyone confirm that the flashing should go under the last row of vinyl or should it be better and go behing the wall the to which the sidding is attached?

Thanks,

Alan Sheppard

[RicodJour]

Flashing should be on top of the sheathing and under the building wrap and siding. Post some pictures on one of those free hosting sites, post a link here, and let's see some pictures.

R

[alan]

Thanks for the reply, you have confirmed my thoughts.

At least we do not have to go under the sheathing just the 'felt paper' or plastic wrap and then the siding.

I did take numerous before & after pics, where can I post these, this is new to me?

Thanks again,

Alan

RicodJour wrote:

[RicodJour]

R

[Mike]

Email me them at [e-mail] and ill host them for you.

[alan]

Thanks,

Pics uploaded under 'public' Alan Sheppard

Alan

RicodJour wrote:

[longshot]

can you provide a link?

[longshot]

ok I found it.. I really can't tell from the pictures what is going on. looks like no flashing at all & I don't understand what a vinyl drain gutter thingy is. the siding should have been removed above the decking & lead/ rubber (whatever) should have covered the entire basement room. if this wasn't covered in your contract & you only told him to build the landing & steps, well he DID do that. you have an unusual situation there. making that lower room water resistant from above is not a typical situation for your average carpenter. JMO Rob

[longshot]

[alan]

On my end the link (

) goes directly to my photos - "Alan Sheppard's photos".

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks,

Alan

l> >>

[alan]

Thanks Rob,

It is an unusual situation, but the carpenter clearly knew the room below had to be waterproofed, he knew enough to see the need for flashing (and I did not know at the time) that just flashing against the siding would still allow water to run directly into the basement within the siding channels.

The vinyl drain I spoke of in particular, is vertical and in the corner. Now running into the open basement created when the old deck was removed. It seems to me that water is channeled to this piece from the vinly siding.

This corner strip (photo # 3) was above the decking before the tear-out and must have been able to allow water to flow to the left and right as you can see by the white channel in this photo and the blue piece in photo # 4 (between the 'close' joists where the old deck was torn away).

Important - The two joists are close because I can now see that the carpenter failed to remove the last joice (part of the decking) and insert instead, one close to it. There were a couple of electrical wires going through the last joist, no comment was made about not being able to R&R this because of it.

At least, had the deck been returned to its original state, water would not just pour through into the basement.

All that need to be said was "we need an electrician" to move the wires and the joist (if it was necessary) could have been easily removed allowing easy access to lay the plywood properly and to start the flashing from there instead of two rows up the siding.

In my mind this is where it all may have started, just tearing off the old and not removing all of the joists in that room as indicated in the beginning.

What do you think?

1 The carpenter knew I have a wood foundation and the great need to keep water out 2 I indicated I needed a membrane to do this (he used shingles and lead). 3 I was getting water infiltration 4 Decking on top of room was not contiguous as before 5 My little research shows that flashing should never be placed over siding in this instance

6 *All that was needed - cut the siding near the level the present flashing and go under it

Thanks,

Alan

l> >

[longshot]

I'd agree, the cut needs to be above the level.

[alan]

Thanks Rob,

Alan

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