bondo-fu

‘Bondo’ to me always evokes the image of a primer Camaro. We’ve been using the stuff to fix window sills, though.

The third point of failure in last month’s leak emergency was a hole in the exterior window trim at the bottom where it meets the sill. Over time, this area had gapped some, which through exposure and wear became a hole a few inches in diameter. The hole and the sill acted to catch and funnel water into the wall the water that was sheeting down the side of the house. Once the water got into the wall, it ran down the studs until it hit the structure of the window downstairs (which is how we discovered the leak). All of the window frames on the southern exposure have signs of this type of degradation, and windows under old leaks consistently show a more distressed condition.

A proper fix for this gappiness should’ve taken place before we put the windows in*. All that we knew then, though, was that the existing windows were beyond repair and that cold was coming. We didn’t really know to look at or how to approach fixing the gaps/holes. A little carpentry then would’ve been nice.

With the windows in place, the most workable solution has been to use an epoxy to rebuild the missing wood. It feels funny to say, but it is true, that we have been bondo-ing the house.

*(And, while windows are the subject I need to get this off of my chest: the vinyl windows are feeling more and more temporary. I just really didn’t know. I promise that one day we’ll get non-plastic windows in here. The house deserves as much…)