Over the weekend, I finally ripped down the basement stairs as part of the basement finishing project. I will build new steps once I finish the floor. I knew that the stairs were pretty badly compromised by termite damage, it was visibly obvious. However, when I ripped down the stairs it was pretty horrifying to see just how bad the damage was.
Firstly, the stringers for the steps had been put in place before the cement floor was poured, so that is how the termites got access. The stringers went right through to the dirt. I expected to have to dig out some old wood from these holes before patching with cement. Well, the termites had taken care of that for me. I literally just vacuumed out the dust, there were no pieces of wood at all. Several of the treads I was able to just lift off since the wood around the nails had been completely eaten away. A couple of the treads broke in half as I pried them off. The treads had been seriously compromised as well. After I had removed about four or five treads, the lower part of the one stringer just fell off the wall. The wood of that stringer was just layers of paper and dust. What I mean is that the termites ate parts of the wood, but not others, so it made this weird layering effect. You could actually flick through the 2 by 12 like it was a deck of cards or the pages of a book. Absolutely amazing to see the extent of the damage these little insects can cause. Not termite related, but the upper end of the outer stringer was also pretty scary to see. It only overlapped the surrounding joists by about half or three quarters of an inch. There were several nails driven in at crazy angles, some of them barely catching wood in both connecting pieces. Anyway, I cemented in the holes in the floor. laid down the last two joists, but since I need to cut the larger sheets outside, and it was raining, I didn't get any further than that. Hopefully, the floor will be done next weekend and I can start on the stairs. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [email protected] Tel: (412) 268-9081
