MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - Re: I'm going to need more nails...

> The house I'm renting had a window that would leak like crazy when it rained really
> hard. If you look at the picture, you can see that the jackasses who built the place
> didn't know what they were doing. The water comes right off the roof and runs under
> the siding since the flashing only runs about 4 inches up the wall and there's no
> "kickout flashing" to divert the water into the gutter properly. Just google for
> kickout flashing to see some of the horror stories...
> http://www.google.com/search?q=kickout+flashing
>
> Anywhoo... When we pulled the siding off over the window, the flake-board right above
> the window and back to the corner was crumbling to dust. I suspect that it was
> leaking ever since the house was built. Many years of melting snow on the roof
> soaking the wall and freezing at night caused it to explode into crumbs. I refuse to
> believe that traditional plywood sheathing would have crumbled the same way.

Wow, that is certainly a DIY wonder there...

That wood, as you said, has been wet for years and temperature cycled. If you never give the wood a chance to dry out properly it really doesn't matter if it's plywood or OSB, it's going to rot. I will give you that plywood might hold together slightly better under those circumstances, but that isn't really normal use. It's like saying my AMD CPU will handle a 300% overclock for longer than your Intel. Under normal, and even slightly above normal use either are fine.