# Does bottom of rotted corner post need replacing?



## Trice (Apr 14, 2011)

I have vinyl siding and the last owners pretty much chewed up 5 of the vinyl corner posts with the lawn mower or weed whacker. The very bottom of the wood posts that the vinyl covered are rotting, I would estimate about 1 inch or so up. (The house sits on a concrete slab.) It's hard to tell if the post are rotted all the way through. The corner posts are on both one and two story parts of the house. 
I had a contractor come out and tell me the way to fix it would be to cut off a portion of the bottom post, replace it with fresh wood wrapped in some waterproofing material then put on new vinyl corner posts. He doesn't plan on jacking the house up to do this and says the wood corner posts are nailed in place so the risk of the house settling while he is doing the work does not exist.

So my questions are-  
Does what he plans on doing sound right
Should be be putting some sort of support while he does the work?
Is he making it more complicated than it is? I saw an epoxy product that can be 'injected' into rotted wood that looks like it might do the trick. 

Thanks


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## nealtw (Apr 14, 2011)

If by corner posts, you mean the corner of the house and the studs in the corner have rot, the contractor is right.


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## joecaption (Apr 15, 2011)

For one thing the house should never have been built that low to the ground.
Sounds like you need to regrade that area.
For another thing siding never should have been installed that close to the ground.
What we have done when someone messed up like that is remove the bottom row of siding and cut the outside corners off so we can install 1 X vinyl lumber with a strip of Z moulding on top of that. That way the weed wacker can not damage it again.


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