Moor Door

While the stucco is curing on my new door install, I decided to take care of a little bit of termite damage that I found while I was doing the install.

The bottom of the king stud here is probably the nastiest part, and I think it's contributing to this wall being a bit more flexible than I'd like, though the majority of it is probably due to how it was framed out, since there's no bracing at the top of the wall and the double top plate really isn't stiff enough to keep things really rigid.

Anyway, the solution to the immediate problem is to sister this chewed up lumber with some fresh new toobiefors. But, since this is a stucco wall, there's not quite enough room for a full width board in here, since the stucco application process tends to cause some bowing of the tar paper when the stucco gets squished into place.

And then there's also these nails in the way.

For whatever reason, 3-1/4" nails are standard in framing, even though that leaves a quarter inch of nail poking out the far side of a pair of 2x4s.

But it's an easy problem to solve.

Anyway, we're gonna need to put the new toobies on a diet to fit into the wall, especially around spots like this.

So we send it off for some bandsaw liposuction.

Of course I also have to work around the mudsill bolts, so a little bit of blocking on the bottom seems in order.

And thus we get to the most important part of any home improvement job: buying new tools.

This is a 21° air-powered framing nailer, and is surprisingly quite a bit lighter than it looks. Let's give it a test run on this blocking.

Yeah, it figures it would split. Ah well, it'll still do the job well enough.

Next up we'll install some metal connectors to help stiffen up the joints between the joists and the top plate and mud sill.

I'm adding them to the existing framing as well as the new stuff.

These nails don't go in with the nail gun, to be clear. You can get a metal connector nailer that will shoot nails into metal connectors like these, but they're a bit spendy for a single-tasker. You can also get a palm nailer to drive the nails for you, or you can just hammer them in manually like some kind of chump.

I hammered them in manually, and I honestly should have got the palm nailer.

Anyway, they go into the new wood too, and I'm adding them before putting the board into place since they're much easier to access before they're in the wall.

Then the other side gets some construction adhesive.

And with some creative wedging to make it conform to the existing framing, it gets nailed into place.

And then the job is done.

Well, except for going out to buy a can of termite foam and squirting it into the chewed up wood. I'm 95% sure that there isn't an active infestation here as the damage predated me moving in (the termites had also chewed on some of the shelving framing that was nailed into this wall, which I removed shortly after moving in) but the foam is cheap so I really have no reason to not do it.