Severe wood rot and termite damage
From what I've heard, termites seek out moisture in the wood. They dig their way through pieces of wood in search of a drink of water, basically. Wood rot is also a result of really high moisture in the wood. Those little slivers of wood attached to the floor used to be 2 inches thick and 8 inches tall. Now they are basically dust. All the white stuff is mold and fungus growing on the dead lumber.
Completely destroyed floor joist
It is amazing that tiny little bugs can eat so much. This board was reduced to about an inch tall from what was originally eight inches. Obviously there is no way to repair something like this. The only option at this point was to bring in brand new wood and essentially replace the section of floor.
Long view of the damage
You can really get a good idea of just how severe the damage was. With nothing supporting this section of floor, it was a lot like a trap in an old Looney Tunes cartoon just waiting for someone to step on it. all of this wood had to be replaced. It is a slow and steady process, dangerous too.
New vs. old wood
This picture shows a nice and new piece of lumber in the center of the frame. It is quite a contrast to the broken and destroyed old joists around it. The scraps that were removed after the project was completed almost filled our dumpster. Imagine an entire home's structural support getting destroyed, not a pretty sight.
Adding strength by bolting floor boards together
Some contractors will drive a couple of nails through the boards to build a girder. DryZone adds strength and durability by using heavy duty bolts to hold the three boards together. Also, any strange or unusual angles in the home and strengthened using the same technique.
Nice new girder
The girder is what takes the majority of the weight of the home. Think of it like your backbone and the floor joists are like your ribs. Its important to take care of this main beam by keeping it dry and level. One of the easiest ways to avoid this entire problem is to have a CleanSpace crawlspace encapsulation system installed before it gets bad.
Much better looking wood beams
Now that a good portion of the job is completed, you can see the contrast between strong wood and destroyed wood. Also, the brown matting seen in most of these pictures is called drainage matting. It is the first layer for a CleanSpace encapsulation system. Most of the time when a homeowner wants to do the clean white vapor barrier at a later date they will get the drainage matting installed first. That way they get a strong vapor barrier in the meantime which is far better than leaving the dirt open and exposed.
Almost finished with the wood replacement
DryZone is a licensed foundation contractor. What that means is that we understand the root cause of these types of issues and will help you to understand them as well. It would've been easy for our team to settle at just the wood replacement project, smile and walk away. This would not have helped the homeowner in the long term, though. The overall conditions that created an environment for termites and rot needed to be fixed. This is why DryZone inspectors stay in contact with a homeowner and try to prevent the problem from happening again.