What do I do? Header/garage door frame rot due to improper/no flashing

[z33tec]

Just purchased my new house a couple months ago. I've been working on getting the garage in order ever since. The other day I bought some new weatherstripping to go around the garage door as the old ones had ripped a bit and just looked old. Went to pull down the top part that was already sagging and a bunch of rotted wood fell down on me from beneath the aluminum cladding.

The 2x top frame was completely rotted through in the middle. I've cut that that out (actually just took most of it down with my hand as it crumbled, except for the ends which were still fine) and am now looking at the header beam which has rot on the bottom.

I've already contacted my roofing/siding guy and he found the issue. The j-channel on the siding was not installed properly and there was no aluminum flashing underneath the bottom part of the siding. They used some cheap caulk to seal up the aluminum cladding, which of course, had cracked and failed years ago. The house was built in 1999 so the wood has basically been rotting since shortly after that.

My question is, what do I do? My roofing/siding guy is going to fix the water issue, but what do I do about the existing rot to the header? He took a look at it and said that the rot probably hasn't gone far enough up the header to cause any structural issues, but I don't know.

My extent of woodworking knowledge is that of building my daughter a kid play table and a few chairs. Don't know anything about structural headers. This all looks pretty bad to me.

Piece of the framing board

Middle of header area

Bottom of header area on right side where its mostly just surface rot/mold

Kind of hard to tell what's what in this pic, but theres a bit of the rotten framing 2x here, as well as the middle of the header and the plywood that is on the outside (which was mostly all rotted at the bottom as well)

Here's a shot of the left side header where there's really no moisture damage. Looks like the header is 2 large beams with plywood in the middle. The beam on the inside didn't get much rot, it was mainly the outer one.

And here's what it looks like from inside the garage, which is why I never knew this issue was hiding under that damn aluminum cladding

 

[Prometheus]

I had the EXACT same issue when we bought our house a couple years ago. We wound up paying a local contractor to fix it. Had to remove all the rotten wood and replace it. It looks like from your pictures the beam itself isn't rotten, which is good, so you really just have to replace the non-structural components that frame out the door. It isn't a difficult job to do, just takes some time and patience. We just paid to have it done since we needed to have the whole door re-wrapped with aluminum trim anyway. Hope that helps.

 

[z33tec]

I had the EXACT same issue when we bought our house a couple years ago. We wound up paying a local contractor to fix it. Had to remove all the rotten wood and replace it. It looks like from your pictures the beam itself isn't rotten, which is good, so you really just have to replace the non-structural components that frame out the door. It isn't a difficult job to do, just takes some time and patience. We just paid to have it done since we needed to have the whole door re-wrapped with aluminum trim anyway. Hope that helps.

Good to know someone else has suffered my same pain .

I've been searching around, and it's apparently a common problem due to poor workmanship. Just wish I could have owned the house sooner and caught it before it got this bad.

Did you have to actually replace the header? If so, how much did that cost if you dont mind me asking? Just wondering what the worst case scenario is.

I can certainly replace the easy framing lumber around the header on my own, just not the header itself. If that's all it takes, I'll be happy.

 

[Prometheus]

I didn't have to do replace the header. It was just all the surrounding lumber that was rotten. Very similar to your pictures. If I remember right it was about $700 to have the lumber replaced and all the aluminum trim around the garage door replaced. the biggest part of that by far was the labor for the new aluminum wrap. We also had them do a few other spots too that had some water damage.

 

[matt_i]

I moved a garage door header up 12" in my shop. I found rot/water damage in one side, the upper J-channel failed to have the "tabs" bent vertically down, they were just cut-off instead and water ran right thru the open gap. I had to put in new jack posts/jack studs to raise the header and a new sheet of OSB.

The process was basically to deck screw a new 2x10 header inside and out to every single vertical stud. Then carefully remove the old jacks and start working. In your case it would just be a direct replacement with no modifications needed.

I did all of this including strip off the aluminum trim, remove and number pieces of vinyl siding, the carpentry work, and then put it all back. About 2-1/2 days work with my Dad as a helper.

In your case I don't see a ton of wood lost. Personally I would put it back together for now and monitor the rainwater fix. You can always get into the replacement later on.

 

[z33tec]

I moved a garage door header up 12" in my shop. I found rot/water damage in one side, the upper J-channel failed to have the "tabs" bent vertically down, they were just cut-off instead and water ran right thru the open gap. I had to put in new jack posts/jack studs to raise the header and a new sheet of OSB.

The process was basically to deck screw a new 2x10 header inside and out to every single vertical stud. Then carefully remove the old jacks and start working. In your case it would just be a direct replacement with no modifications needed.

I did all of this including strip off the aluminum trim, remove and number pieces of vinyl siding, the carpentry work, and then put it all back. About 2-1/2 days work with my Dad as a helper.

In your case I don't see a ton of wood lost. Personally I would put it back together for now and monitor the rainwater fix. You can always get into the replacement later on.

Thanks for the reply. Sounds like I "could" replace the header myself if I had help. I think I'm going to do what you said though and just replace all the framing around it for now and keep an eye on it.

This is hopefully the house we stay in forever though so I want to make sure everything is done correctly for the long haul, you know.

Thanks again.