Repairing water damaged plywood under flloring and joists below a bathroom

[jholtzman]

Discovered a long leaking shower pipe (now repaired) which resulted in water dripping on the wood under flooring and joists underneath our master bathroom shower. The wood has turned back - i don't see any integrity issues so want to determine what to do next. My thought was to treat with a bleach mixture (all wood is accessible from my walk-in crawl space) and then prime and paint. is this the correct solution?

[pushkins]

Allow the wood to dry out before you do anything, then you can use Clorox wipes to wipe down any mold remaining on the joists and underside of the sub flooring. After you have cleaned it you can use a 10 to 1 mix of bleach and spray onto the area (don't saturate it). Allow to dry and reinstall your insulation (assuming that the insulation is okay, if it got heavily wet or moldy replace it, it's a cheap replacement.

there should be no reason to paint any of the lumber.

[Mark Toughill]

Repairing Water Damaged Timbers

Hi, I would definitely clean and dry out the timber joists to begin with. Then I would suggest you seek out a really good wood preservative and treat the wood accordingly. As regards the insulation, I would dispose of it immediately as the smell of the saturated insulation would stay around for a while. Renew the insulation and this will be fine.

[pushkins]

Word of warning when thinking about using an after market wood preservative especially in a confined space like a crawlspace. Almost all after market preservatives are designed to be used in well ventilated areas, you need to apply it on all sides of the material or they are essentially useless (which you are unable to do on installed floor joists and sub flooring. Speaking of sub flooring, do not apply wood preservative products to particle board, chip board and many strand board products.
For wood to have wet rot, bacterial rot etc...it must have moisture present, if you have repaired the water issue and your crawlspace is dry then simply allow the wood to dry out then install your new insulation this would be a good opportunity to use "faced" insulation if it's an older home with un faced insulation, the paper side is installed faced towards the heated area.

(to Mark......go the eagles !! )

[Mark Toughill]

The Eagles

Sorry pushkins, don't really follow the eagles. I am actually Scottish and have been down under for just under 6 years now. I mainly follow the football or soccer as the Aussies call it. Never really got my head round Aussie rules football. Cheers anyway mate.

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