How Dangerous Is Dry Rot?

You may have heard the term and wrinkled your brow, but if you are wondering what dry rot is and how you can fix one of the most dangerous fungi, you have come to the right place!

Dry rot is a widespread problem for homeowners in the Pacific Northwest. Often dry rot is hard to notice or detect because it tends to occur in the hidden inner structures of your home: beneath floorboards, inside crawl spaces, and behind walls. However, dry rot also occurs in visible places, such as your roof, areas of window or door framing exposed to rain, skylights, and on counters and inside cupboards. Because it is spawned in wet places, the dry rot fungus will often take hold in bathroom or kitchen areas and damp basements.

Dry rot is a fungus that feeds on moist or damp wood, which is overly abundant in the rainy Northwest. It may be ironic that the dry rot fungus thrives on wet wood, but the term ‘dry rot’ actually refers to the condition of wood after it has been infested and deteriorated by the fungus. First identified on extensively used ships in England, dry rot describes wood that is in a state of disrepair that is brittle, cracked, crumbly, and virtually useless for its intended function. The disintegration of wood caused by the dry rot fungus destroys the strength, durability, firmness, and vigor of wood—which are all qualities you want to have in the wooden structures and surfaces of your home. Got Rot?

How dangerous is dry rot? Dry rot is caused by a harmful fungus that does not merely infect one area of your home, then die off. Often referred to as ‘building cancer,’ the dry rot fungus continuously spreads throughout all available sources of moist or damp wood that your home may contain. Once it has taken hold, it progressively deteriorates and weakens the wooden structures and surfaces of your home, rendering them increasingly less sturdy and stable. In effect, the dry rot fungus eats away at the integrity of your home, compromising its capacity to provide a safe or effective living environment.

If you are asking yourself, “How does dry rot affect my home?” you should know that dry rot is essentially wood decay and represents a progressive deterioration of the wooden structures and surfaces in your home that can cause severe and irreversible damages. Therefore, it is essential to have it removed and the affected wood structures repaired before it becomes too far gone of a problem. Just like a cavity in your tooth, the longer you wait to have home dry rot removal and home dry rot repair work, the worse the decay will become, and the more compromised the integrity of your home will be.

Due to the very harmful and accelerating impacts of dry rot, it’s best to have your home inspected today so that if you do have a problem, a contractor can repair it before it’s too late.

As a fungus, dry rot first appears as a mass of tiny red spores or brownish spore dust that spreads out across a wood surface. As it develops, dry rot fungus turns into a branching mass of white strands that cling to the wood. Dry rot can also appear as a thick mass of cotton or sprawling cobwebs. It is common for wood thoroughly invaded by the dry rot fungus to be covered with mushroom growths. This typically represents the end stage of dry rot in which the wood has become utterly dilapidated.

Wood that has any strange looking growths on it, appears unusually stained, dark, or discolored, or has a musty odor that smells like fungus or soil is likely infected with the dry rot fungus. Dry rot can also cause wood to not function properly. Wood that is unusually loose or has shrunk, oftentimes seen in door frames or window ledges, may indicate dry rot. Floors that appear warped and concave or “give” when walked upon are sure signs of underlying dry rot in your floorboards.

Upon noticing any of these signs or symptoms of dry rot, it’s a great idea to Call SFW Construction LLC, your local professional dry rot repair and removal service.

While dry rot presents a significant threat to the structural integrity and safety of your home, there are also considerable health hazards. How dangerous is dry rot to your health? First, if you have dry rot in the living spaces of your home, this may indicate an environment that is overly humid and which may cause you to be prone to respiratory problems or exacerbate existing asthma. While most folks don’t have allergic reactions to the fungus that causes dry rot, a minority of people do. Also, dry rot can jeopardize the functionality of your home and cause-related problems that are bad for your health.

SFW Construction LLC has performed professional dry rot repair and removal services throughout the Northwest for over a decade. We have the training, the tools, and the experience to target, isolate, and extract 100% of the dry rot fungus from your home. It’s essential to remove all the fungus, down to the tiniest spores, because if any fungus remains, it will continue to increase. That’s why it’s best to contact a dry rot repair specialist to address this common home problem.

As a licensed general contractor, SFW Construction LLC is well-equipped to handle any structural renovation work that needs to be accomplished to repair the wood structures and surfaces of your home that have been impacted by dry rot. We regularly conduct siding repair and siding replacement, carpentry, roofing, and any kind of construction-related repair work your home may need.

While addressing dry rot is a tricky business, SFW Construction does not endorse using wood fillers or hardener products, which do not resolve the problem correctly.

If you suspect you have dry rot, Contact SFW Construction LLC Today!