The house I bought has an addition that’s always been drafty, even after having the crawlspace sealed. It seems to be coming in via the baseboards, so I looked at the underside of the siding and found these. (The picture is pointing upwards, though the perspective is weird – the hole is in the side of the block.) Aren’t weep holes supposed to be at the bottom of the wall? There’s metal flashing right above them, so it doesn’t seem like they would do anything for drainage, but they sure provide an avenue for air and bugs to come in. Should I cover them up, and if so, with what?
Thanks in advance for any advice. I’m kinda new at this.
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No that's not a weephole. Its a joint that is missing a little bit of motar and it's probably not the cause of the air infiltration. You have air getting in over/under the sill plate. You will not do any harm if you caulk the entire horizontal joint, that might stop any drafts but you need insulation too.
What does the inside of this area look like? You probably want to insulate the rim joist if you can get to it...
The rim joist under the room has been fully spray foamed in the crawlspace, but that's just the bottom. Like you say, air is still coming in over the sill plate. If I pull the baseboards and caulk the gap between the floor and drywall, air would still be coming in behind it, so do I use a bunch of low-expansion Great Stuff to fill the void? I know the "Do It Right" answer would be to cut out the lower stretch of drywall to see precisely what's going on back there, but money *is* an object at the moment. I have a drywall router, so maybe I can widen the bottom gap enough to stick an inspection camera in?
Also, here are some thermal images of the baseboards in the room
That's not a weep-hole - it's what masons call a bee-hole: missing mortar. Fill it.
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