1) Assessed damage by marking all soft areas of the rotted window
frame. Took note of the "good" wood and marked off the soft areas. The unseen
wood rot is pretty pervasive on this window sill and the good wood is closest
to the inside of the house. The outer 2 inches is clearly soft and the layers
of paint have been holding the moisture captive to the wood and had been hiding
the damage.
2) I determined that the best way to get the CPES™ into the
wood would be by drilling 1/2 inch diameter vertical holes spaced every 3/4 of
an inch down to a depth of about 2 1/2 inches. Alternative of cutting and removing
sill would be much more work and aggravation. The CPES™ would be injected
using a syringe.
3) Mixed the CPES as directed using a 1:1 ratio. Used a hollowed
out aluminum soda can and used disposable medicine syringes which worked pretty
well.
4) I started to inject the CPES™ into the holes and guessed
that I would use 18 to 32 ounces max for this repair. Boy was I off! It used all
64 ounces of the CPES™ solution. It literally soaked up the CPES™
like a sponge. I was happy to see this occur as I wanted to make sure that all
of the wood fibers were saturated with the epoxy. I also used a hair dryer to
hasten the drying and setup time in between injections.
5) Since we were getting hammered with rain, I covered the windowsill
with Aluminum Foil and duct tape to keep the water out of the window sill.
6) After a day's worth of drying (24 hours) I could see that the
windowsill got noticeably harder due to the CPES™ drying and setting. It
had soaked and permeated into every molecule of that window sill.
7) After 2 days of drying, I used a chisel to cut a 1.25" wide channel
into the window sill so that the epoxy filler would have a better chance of bonding
to the dried CPES™ and wood fibers. More epoxy would be better due to all
of the wet wood in the edge of the windowsill.
8) I used Epoxy Resin as the final filler. This took about an hour
to setup and about 24 hours to fully dry.
9) After 36 hours of drying, the repair has been completed and the
soft wood is gone. The entire window sill has been saved and is now rock solid
and ready for an oil based primer and marine grade oil based- top coat paint.
Update: 5 days after completing the repair. The windowsill is rock-hard
with no weak or soft areas. I am very happy with the results and extremely impressed
with the CPES™ product. The repair cost in materials alone was about $75
dollars total. In addition, I also had the satisfaction of knowing that the repair
was done properly from start to finish. BTW, I received estimates of between $300
and $500 to repair/replace the windowsill from 3rd party contractors immediately
after closing on the house in July.
I will not repair any wood rot in my house without using CPES™. Consider
me one of the newest converts and believers in the Rot Doctor.
|