South County Roofing Qualifications

Why does it happen?

Who should repair the dry rot or termite damaged wood on your Orange County home?

The process of replacing any wood attached to a structural member of your home or wood that is installed directly under the roof involves a great deal of expertise and a complete understanding of how your home is constructed. Rest assured you have found the company with the expertise, skill, experience, and the tools needed to properly repair and replace all types of dry rot.

If you look through the pictures of some of the jobs we do every day you will see expertly mitered corners, joints that are tight and solid, wood being sanded in order get the surface just right, the use of a level, and a conscious effort toward aesthetics and structural integrity. The structural aspects of these repairs are often ignored by unprepared workers.

If you hire an unprepared worker or the wrong contractor you take the chance that many things could go wrong such as: they could use the wrong species of wood, incorrect fasteners, in adequate priming and painting, loss of structural integrity, and a poor finish. The expertise needed for properly leveling, aligning, sanding, priming and painting, and installing these boards is a skill not normally associated with roofers, termite guys, or your average contractor. The person you need to hire to properly execute these repairs will need a skill set that overlaps the roofing, waterproofing, rough framing, and exterior finish work trades into one. If the person who you hire is lacking in any one of those areas your home and the job will suffer because of it. Unfortunately it is not as simple as just hiring a roofing, termite, or general contractor.

Sure before you hire one of these contractors they will all say they can do it, have done it, and are great at it but, the reality is that they’re not. And, sometimes they are learning on your job even though they say they know what they are doing when they really don’t. You will not have to worry about anything with us on your job. If you observe us working you will quickly realize you have hired professionals to work on your home and the work we do will show it.

How Long have we been doing this? -

We have been doing dry rot repair work for in Orange County since 1997 with CSLB license number 737515. We are knowledgeable and skilled about cutting, measuring, and repairing difficult wood jobs. We are meticulous about priming and painting. We always use the right wood for the right job. We won’t cut corners. We know how your house is designed to distribute weight and carry weight loads. All repairs are done to last a lifetime and are intended to strengthen the structural integrity of your home and not just replace damaged boards. We have specialized tools for many of the jobs you see. Some of the tools we carry cannot be purchased at the local hardware stores. We are not saying that your job can’t be done without our knowledge and the proper tools but I can say there’s a significant difference in the outcome of your job when you use us.

To the left you see some dry rot damaged eave boards. Dry rot damage like pictured to the left is typical for tile roofs to have on the edges and around the perimeters of the roof.  Most roofers do not water proof the edges properly.  Because of this lack of detail on the edges of your roof your eave boards and fascia can suffer.  The continued wetting and drying that the wood endures starts the dry rot condition.  The dry rot condition in turn eats away and softens the wood.  The softening of the wood combined with the wetness due to a lack of proper water proofing attracts termites.  When you get active termites and dry rot damage in the same location the damage gets really bad.  What most contractors don’t do is remove a lot of tile in the area of the termite and dry rot in order to expose the damage roofing felt that has been allowing the water to come into contact with and damage the wood.  With the felt exposed we can then cut out and remove the damaged felt and replace it with new.  But, this is only the half of it.  If you are not experienced with tying new felt into an old roof you can cause more damage and ongoing leaks.  It’s not as easy as just putting some new felt down on or around the existing felt as I quickly learned when I started doing this type of repair 20+ years ago

Here you can see there is significant tile and felt removal needed to be done to properly repair the area. This particular job was done in Lake Forest in December of 2010. The storms and rain was so bad that we didn’t have the normal amount of time to do the job like this. And, the damage was far worse then what it initially appeared to be. Because of impending rains and a bad leak that was destroying the inside of the home I informed the Chris A. that I would remove and replace the damaged wood but I would not be able to do the priming and painting because of the weather. He agreed to have his painter come by when weather permits and get everything covered. Normally we like to completely prime the wood (if the case of wood fascia all six sides) and paint the wood but priming and painting does have to be done as weather permits and December 2010 the weather was not permitting and we had to work fast.

Orange County Dry Rot and Patio Repair -

To the right you see a post from a patio that has some very bad looking dry rot at the base of it. Chris and Margerie T. of Orange County had us look at their patio with hopes of saving it. He just wasn’t ready to spend the money it takes for a brand new patio but he also wasn’t happy that the patio looked like it was ready to fall over. He knew something had to be done. Saving a patio from a complete replacement can be a very difficult and sometimes it is not financially practical. It is much easier to just tear it down and start from scratch but that is not always necessary if you have the right people on the job.


We often take part in building, repairing, and re-roofing patios and patio structures like this. We will not be learning on the job with your project. For Chris and Margerie in Orange County we were able to save them the immediateexpense of replacing the whole thing. When I spoke with Chris and Margerie they told me everyone quoted him for two new patios. I agreed the patios could be and should be replaced. But, he informed me that they had a budget they had to adhere to. I have done several jobs for them and I agreed to take the challenge of meeting their budget and saving the patio covers from complete replacement. All of the posts had to be changed out and we had to fix the reason for the rotten posts and post brackets. After all, we didn’t want that happening again in a few years. We ended up changing the post hardware that was attached to the floor and we used a wood banding technique at the very bottom of the post to hide the brackets and keep water from getting to the bottom of the post and the post bracket itself. Below are some pictures of how it all came out for them.

Does your Orange County home need fascia or beam repair? Are you wondering if your fascia be removed without destroying your roof or having to replace it?

The little Details Make the Job Special

When you cut back beams the wood surface that is left will need to be sanded.  Even though we use a special saw we like the surface as straight as possible so that the fascia doesn’t look “wavy” when you look at it.  Now, getting a roofer to go back and sand each beam before they install the fascia is going to be almost impossible unless you hire us.  I don’t think most roofer’s would bring a sander to work with them or even own one.  After all, roofers in general are not very experienced at doing wood work.  But, they don’t seem to have a problem bidding and accepting these types of jobs.  But, just because they need work does not mean you should expect it to come out looking like this.  The wood work experience most roofers have is cutting plywood and replacing a few pieces of eave board.  It considered rough carpentry.  Those tasks do not require the use of a level, triangle, slider, or other special equipment and they can be done by just about anyone.  Fascia removal and replacement, large beam cut backs, and patio installation requires a framing specific background with some finish and detail wood work experience to make it look nice.  We have all that and more.  

Details, details, details.

When doing a job like this the devil is in the details as they say.  It’s the little things that count.  Anyone can tear down boards and put them back up but do they do it in a professional manner?  Will their work stand the test of time?  The answer for most contractors is no.  The problem is if you ask them they will tell you yes but that is just not the truth.  The truth is most contractors don’t have any idea that someone is actually doing work like this.  They think everyone does the same thing.  Most contractors believe all contractors do everything as cheap as possible and as fast as possible.  Just ask them.  They think that is what you want.  We know differently.  Yes, we know that you the customer is going to be price conscience.  But, we also know you want the job done right and you don’t want short cuts taken on your home.  Here, at South County Roofing we have it down to a science because we have done it so many times.  This didn’t come naturally for us and it doesn’t for anyone.  It was through a lot of doing it over and over and us concentrating on doing the best job we possibly could.  Every job we do makes us a little bit better.  Even the smallest details are not taken for granted.  Every corner we cut is expertly mitered.  Even the large beams will be carefully mitered even though it takes a lot more time and expertise. 

This is not a normal detail cut to see.  I usually inspect homes with new fascia installed and most beams with fascia attached to it have a simple butt joint used to join them.  Let’s face it, most roofers (even the ones who say they are detailed oriented) are not detailed oriented.  Most roofers, window guys, or contractors do not have high carpentry standards even though they want to or claim to.  It is because of our standards that your job comes out the way it does.  And, it all begins when we pick out your wood from the lumber yard.  The fascia we used for this and every job was handpicked and delivered to the job by us personally. We will select kiln dried wood as necessary and closely inspect the wood before it is loaded into the truck and delivered to the job.  We always pick and deliver our own wood. I know we could have the lumber company or whoever deliver it but we are very concerned about the quality of the wood we use.  We rather hand pick each piece of wood we use for your house that way we know it is as straight as possible and free of any obvious defects or disease.  This ensures that every piece of wood meets our scrutiny.  When the project is done and all the wood is painted and replaced it will look like a factory install instead of a “after the fact repair”.

Sometimes the fascia needed to be replaced is right in front of the entrance to the home. The entrance of a home is a focal point and that makes the task of finding the right person for this job even more important.  There’s a big difference from working on a hidden section of the home than from working on something prominently located in plain view.  If this is not done correctly up you will be seeing it every day you walk in your house.  Looking at someone’s lack of detail on a daily basic is not something that I look forward to.  There’s a lot more to this type of repair than just removing and replacing some boards.  It’s the little things that we do that will the difference in your home appearance.  Having us do the job will lead to a sense of pride and satisfaction in knowing a high degree of craftsmanship was used on your home.  If quality is something you want your in the right place

Here you can see we not only cut back the beams, but we replaced the eave board, primed and painted the fascia. After all the fascia is replaced we then replaced all the damaged eave boards and the damaged roofing felt in that same area. Also, we installed a new 2x4 inch white baked on enamel drip edge metal to the deck to help protect the new fascia. We know that you could use standard 2x2 sized metal and that is what I was told every contractor bidding on this job specified.  And that’s typical.  But, that’s not typical for us.  I can only assume they were trying to save a buck by using smaller metal.  We feel you cannot get enough protection in this critical area and we will go the extra mile at every turn in your project.  You will not have to wonder what would need to be done at certain points in the job because we will already be doing it.  From using the proper wood, the correct fasteners, appropriate priming and painting, using necessary metal treatments, and in this case finishing of the edge of the tile with a custom dove inlayed clay bird stop to further upgrade the appearance of the front of the home.  No detail will be forgotten and no detail will be taken for granted and absolutely no short cuts.

Finishing touches, here we come.

At some point the finishing touches is all that is left on the job. We know that this is the point where most customers are likely to be left a little unsatisfied with their job. Let’s face it. A contractor’s attention to detail usually starts to diminish when he is this close to the finish line. I don’t know why but it seems the closer they get to the finishing it seems they just want to get paid. I dislike that attitude greatly and that will not happen with us. We know all too well that the job requires the little things to be done as well to hold up to our own high standards. On this particular job that meant re-touching up the all of the paint, repairing the stucco where the old fascia was attached, and of course (something we are known for) an immaculate clean up of the premises. Our goal is to make it look like we were never even there.