[quote=no_such_reality]That might not be that bad. Granted the picture doesn’t show a lot, but you may actually have caught it still early.
Time to rip the rest of the dry wall off to the right to see how extensive it it. However from the photo, the middle 2×4 doesn’t appear to have them in it, or doesn’t have them extensively.
The one on the right, looks like a piece of wafer cookie with the frosting sucked out, but wall stud next to it doesn’t look heavily infested. So you may just have the single window framing board hosting.
How’s the top piece that frames the window. It looks covered by the flashing, or is it completely gone?[/quote]
Well, regarding the top horizontal piece framing the window…….Lol… (because there’s no point crying about it)
The water leak appears to be from a tiny hole in the stucco on the other side, and since there is no longer any wood there, it just leaks right in. A little calking would fix that, but the bigger issue is the wood definitely needs to be replaced.
If it was just the vertical window support, I’d say that would be pretty easy to replace.
But with the horizontal window frame 2×4 definitely needs to be replaced too. On the right side (you can’t see it) there’s a 1″ gap between the horizontal frame and the vertical support 2×4. I’m not sure how I would go about replacing the horizontal frame. It seems like the frame was nailed downward before the window was installed. I’m not sure how I could simply replace that horizontal beam without taking out the window first.. .maybe slide a beam from below, and nail from above between the window sills??? It seems like the window is already attached on the other 3 sides to the rest of the frame, so maybe I can get away with just taking out the bottom frame beam and replacing it from the bottom. But again, I think it will require me to demolish some of the outside stucco. I think I’ll just get someone to do it.
Anyway, this sucks. I guess I’ll need to delay my miata purchase even further, lol….
First thing is first. I need to find a termite inspector to inspect and eradicate. I might have an infestation elsewhere. Judging by the way the wood looks, it’s been like this for some time. I doubt this happens in just a matter of months.
