Wood Rot Repair in Wesley Chapel, FL

Where rot shows up on local homes

With block walls and stucco, most Wesley Chapel homes have less exterior wood than older frame houses, so the wood that is there takes all the abuse. These are the spots we probe first on nearly every house:

• The bottom 6 inches of entry and garage service door jambs
• The wood frame around the garage door opening where it meets the driveway
• Fascia ends below roof valleys and where gutters are missing
• Window sills and trim on second story frame walls
• Wood lanai posts, pergola beams and the bottom of fence posts

Finding the edge of the damage

Rot rarely stops where it looks like it stops. We push an awl into the wood every few inches. Sound wood resists, rotted wood lets the tip sink in with little effort. We follow it until we hit solid material on every side, because leaving a little soft wood behind means the repair fails from the inside out. In damp, warm wood, termites sometimes move in too. If we see mud tubes or frass, we stop and tell you to call a pest company before we close anything up.

Epoxy or replacement

Small, shallow rot in a part that is hard to replace, like a jamb corner on an entry door with sidelights, is a good candidate for epoxy. We cut out the soft wood, soak the remaining fibers with a penetrating consolidant, then fill with a two-part wood epoxy and shape it to the original profile. Once sanded and painted it is invisible.

Long runs of soft trim, rotted fascia or a jamb bottom that is mush are better replaced. For anything near the ground or the driveway, we use cellular PVC because it does not rot, takes paint well, and holds nails firmly. Rotted fascia boards are handled under soffit and fascia repair when the damage runs along the roof line.

Stopping the water that caused it

Rot is the symptom. Typical causes here include a missing gutter dumping roof water on the same trim, sprinklers hitting a door frame, failed caulk at the stucco joint, and a jamb sitting in standing water on a flat entry slab. We fix the wood, then seal every joint and end grain, and we point out what else needs to change, whether that is moving a sprinkler head or adding a diverter. Fresh joints are sealed with the same care as exterior caulking.

Call us when you notice

• Paint is bubbling or cracking at the bottom of a door frame
• A screwdriver sinks into trim with light pressure
• Fascia sags or pulls away below a valley
• Garage frame wood is dark and crumbling near the slab
• Mushroom-like growth or a musty smell around exterior trim

How a wood rot repair job runs