Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Is Your Porch Rotten?

Be sure to check your home’s exterior regularly for problems and maintenance issues.

Anytime is a good time to look over your home’s exterior for issues. I always try to get our customers out of a spring cleaning point-of-view because problems can occur any time of year that are best not left untreated.

The reason I’m mentioning this now is because we recently remodeled a relatively new screen porch in Market Common that ended up being full of rotted wood.

A customer hired us to convert his screen room into a four season glass sunroom. To do this, we removed the old screen room walls that had a kneewall area covered with Hardie Plank Siding. The Hardie Plank is great stuff that we use often, but what was underneath was a huge problem. The builder installed the Hardie Plank over simple OSB boards, which are not made to handle the elements like treated plywood or other exterior materials. When we pulled off the Hardie Plank, we found that all of the wood underneath was rotten.

Here’s a before shot and a progress shot of the job…

Here’s a couple of photos from the pile in our dumpster after we started work on it. You can see the rot in the OSB and the studs.

Eventually, there could have been a structural failure with the walls or the Hardie Plank would start coming detached. This is a great example of a common issue that you should inspect around your home on a regular basis.

If you’d like to see a few more, I actually filmed an entire video series about the most common ones, click HERE.

Thanks,
Dave the guy who loves replacing rotten wood with better stuff

PS…If you have a home in Emmens Preserve in Market Common, chances are that your porch is the same way if you have a kneewall. They would’ve all been built the same way by the same crew. We don’t have to build you a sunroom (unless you want one), but we can replace the rotten stuff.

PSS…We’re replacing all of the wood with aluminum studs. No rot, rust, or termites…ever!


You can find us at…

Ocean Breeze Exterior Remodeling

843-238-4798

www.oceanbreezeexteriors.com

Our showroom is located at 739 Sandy Lane in Surfside Beach, SC


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Is Your Remodeler Trying to Kill You?

I was walking down the street with two of my kids to the playground the other day and noticed this vinyl pane sunroom for the first time. I’m not afraid to say that it’s a very attrractive room, even though our company didn’t do it.

It’s also very dangerous.

Before I mention it, Who can tell me why?

If you said, “There’s no railing protection,” then you’re right. According to the code, any screen or vinyl pane room over 30 inches off the ground requires railing. Now a fall from 31 inches may only hurt a little, but a fall from this height will likely kill you. If a child runs into that vinyl pane window or an adult falls back against it, they would likely pop right through it and fall through.

A professional company like mine could lose their license for building such a dangerous structure. I say professional, because it’s likely this work was done by a contractor with no license or permit. At least I assume the Town of Surfside Beach wouldn’t allow this to pass inspection. That would be a completely different matter entirely. But forget licenses and permits. What about conscience? If someone fell through these windows and died, we could lose everything, especially the peace of mind knowing that we willingly built something so dangerous.

This is just another reason you should always check out your contractor and make sure what they’re doing is right and proper.

Here’s what a company like ours would do in this situation.

Number one, we wouldn’t have left it like this.

Number two, it needs some type of fall protection, either railing or rail screen. We have several products that would’ve fit this perfectly. Railing is the normal one, but it limits the view and adds a whole lot of new vertical lines. We also have a brand new product we can install for applications like these that is a building code certified screen product. Fewer vertical lines and the same fall protection as white railing. It’s also a lot less expensive.

When you start getting bids from remodelers, ask them about codes, but be sure to also inquire about options. There’s almost always a couple of choices that will give you an attractive outdoor space and won’t leave you with a death trap.

When you start calling for those bids, be sure to give us a call first or just drop by the showroom.

Thanks,

Dave, the guy who builds sunrooms that won’t kill people


You can find us at…
843-238-4798
www.oceanbreezeexteriors
Showroom located at 739 Sandy Lane in Surfside Beach, SC


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Seeking Constant Improvement

It’s really easy in any venture to get stuck in old ruts and forget that the world is changing around us. We’re constantly on the lookout for new products and new ways of doing things here at Ocean Breeze Exteriors.

On that note, I wanted to tell you about a new product we have available to us. It is mainly geared for condo porches or other structures up two levels or more. In other words, this applies to all of our customers with stilt houses as well.

To enclose higher level porches isn’t easy, but we’ve been doing it for years. You can see that from the photo below from Grande Dunes. We either have to rent specialized equipment, set up multiple levels of scaffolding, or manhandle the windows in pieces to install from the inside. None of those methods are easy or inexpensive…or fun for our team.

There’s a new product on the market that allows for three season vinyl pane windows to be installed from the inside of the balcony with a flexible metal screen frame that can be folded and popped in from the inside as well. In the photo below you can see me bending the frame to show how flexible it is.

If you have a higher level porch and wanted to enclose it, now is the time. It’s cheaper and easier to do, and we’re just the folks you need to do it.

Thanks!

David Powers, the strongman bending metal in the photo!


You can find us at…
843-238-4798
www.oceanbreezeexteriors
Showroom located at 739 Sandy Lane in Surfside Beach, SC


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DO NOT Wrap Treated Wood!

I’d like to clue you in on a secret. It’s one your homebuilder or remodeler knows but may not tell you.

You can’t wrap treated wood on your porch or screen room in aluminum.

Go outside to your deck or patio right now and check it. Are the upright posts and horizontal beams covered in white aluminum?

If so, count on replacing it in a few years after the chemicals from the treated wood cause a chemical reaction with the aluminum and it starts to corrode and flake away. If you have any bubbling spots on the aluminum, that’s an early sign. You can check out more of the science behind it right HERE.

The only way to counter this is to let the wood dry thoroughly, wrap it in a barrier of some kind before the aluminum goes on, or use something else. Contractors usually don’t do this because drying takes too long and you want to move in fast, the barrier costs extra money in time and materials, and the third option isn’t the cheapest way to do it.

Or is it?

You see, we specialize in the third option. We build our projects with structural aluminum and no chemically treated wood. Better for you. Better for the environment. Lasts longer.

I’ll be straight with you. It is more expensive right off the bat though. The upside to this is that it’s actually cheaper in the long run. If you end up having to replace all that brand new aluminum wrapping and treated wood in just a few years, you’re basically paying double and still ending up with the same problem. Also, the aluminum posts we use are maintenance free. No painting. No rewrapping. No termites. Much cheaper in the long run.

Here’s a few pics from a job we just finished. We had to tear out all of her old aluminum wrapping and repair the porch structure before we could even install our new vinyl 4-track windows. On a $300K house, her small screen porch was a weak point that her contractor knew about.

Thanks for reading! Don’t forget your free gift.

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Are Your Windows Sweating?

It’s that time of year again when we either turn the heat on or just let the system rest until the weather gets colder. It’s also the time of year your windows may start sweating.

This doesn’t mean you have bad windows (although if you do, call us and we can replace them with high quality double or triple pane insulated windows, just saying). It just means there’s too much humidity trapped in the house. Your air conditioned pulls all that out when it’s running, but the heater doesn’t.

Here’s a tip from Better Homes and Gardens on what you can do…

Another option we’ve also used is to buy small dehumidifiers for certain rooms. We found a great small one on Amazon that’s small and quiet enough to not be noticed most of the time. You can find it HERE.

This post was written by the team at Ocean Breeze. If we can help you in any way, please don’t hesitate to call.

 


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