Wood Rot Repair in Fort Worth, TX

Paint can look intact over wood that has gone soft underneath, because a good acrylic film holds together long after the board behind it starts to break down. We test every suspect spot with an awl. If the point sinks more than about an eighth of an inch under light pressure, that wood is compromised. Rot travels along the grain, so a dime-sized soft spot at the bottom of a door jamb often runs six to ten inches up the inside face. We keep cutting until the sawdust comes out pale and dry, because leaving even a few inches of decayed fiber feeds the next round.

Moisture readings tell us how far to go. Sound, dry pine trim here usually reads somewhere around 9 to 14 percent on a pin meter. Anything well above that near a sill or fascia joint tells us water is still getting in, and we track down why before we replace anything. Sometimes it's a gutter overflowing onto the fascia; other times it's a missing kick-out flashing or a sprinkler head that soaks the same corner every morning.

Small, contained damage on a profile that's hard to match is a good candidate for epoxy. We dig out the soft wood, saturate the cavity with a penetrating consolidant, let it soak in, then pack a two-part wood epoxy filler and shape it with rasps and 80-grit paper once it cures. That approach saves original window sills and molded casings on older homes where modern replacement stock would never quite line up.

Long runs of soft fascia, split corner boards and rotted bottom rails are faster and more durable to replace. We use primed finger-jointed pine, cedar or fiber-cement trim depending on what's already on the house, back-prime every cut end, and fasten with stainless or hot-dipped galvanized nails so rust doesn't bleed through the paint later. Before the new piece goes up, we treat the exposed rafter tails or framing behind it with a borate wood preservative if they show early staining. Every joint between old and new boards gets a scarf cut rather than a flat butt joint, which sheds water and keeps the seam from telegraphing through the finish.

• Epoxy: sill noses, molded casing, jamb bottoms, small pockets
• Dutchman patch: a new piece let into an original board
• Full replacement: fascia runs, corner boards, rake boards, garage jambs
• PVC or fiber-cement: spots that stay damp and keep failing

Most rot on brick homes starts at a joint: the bottom of a fascia splice, the seam where trim meets brick, or the end grain of a sill. We seal end grain with primer before installation, leave a small gap where boards meet masonry so water can drain, and run a paintable polyurethane or elastomeric sealant only where it belongs. Caulking every crack shut traps water about as often as it keeps it out.

Primer choice matters too. Bare repairs get an exterior oil-based or bonding acrylic primer, allowed to dry for the full recoat window on the label, then two coats of 100% acrylic exterior paint. Those two finish coats put down roughly 3 to 4 mils of dry film, which is what new wood needs to shed rain and stand up to summer UV. We also look at what's around the repair. Pulling a mulch bed back so it doesn't touch the trim, redirecting a sprinkler head, or adding a short drip edge over a door are small changes, but they often decide whether a fixed corner lasts many seasons or softens again in two.

Painting over rot hides it for a season. The new film traps moisture in the soft wood, the paint blisters within a year, and by then the damage has crept further along the board. When we prepare a house for exterior painting, rot repair happens during prep week, right after the wash and before priming. That order lets the wood dry out, and it means the repaired boards get exactly the same finish coats as the rest of the house.

If you only need a few spots fixed and the surrounding paint is still sound, we can spot prime and paint the repaired sections. We'll tell you plainly when the color won't blend because the old paint has faded, so you can decide whether to repaint the full fascia run or the whole elevation. On a typical spot-repair visit, we can usually cut, rebuild and prime in one day, then return after the primer cures to apply finish coats. Epoxy repairs need a cool, dry stretch to cure properly, so in peak August heat we schedule that work for the morning.