Hello, I have a question im hoping that someone can help me with. I bought a 1982 24′ x 40′ ranch in maine that needed to be gutted. While doing the renovations I noticed that at the top plate, bottom plate and through the sill plate on the exterior walls there were 2 – 1″ dia. holes drilled in each bay. Im not sure why someone would do this? The house is sided with vinyl siding on top of masonite siding and the only thing I can guess is its some kind of remediation to fix the problems with the masonite siding. I have a major problem with ice damning & mice and want to plug these holes up but Im not sure what effect it will have. I have researched this and cannot find an answer. Can anyone please help me. Thank You
Replies
Fillem up
Sombody screwed the pooch with that hair brained idea. The holes are a big reason you are forming ice dams.
The holes, bottom and top, are acting as chemenies and drafting the heat up and through the walls. The warm air circulating into the atic thaws the snow on the roof and it runs down to refreeze on the eaves..
Not sure if mice will chew through foam in the holes or not. Maybe a firestop type would stop them, but fill those hole and you will likely solve both problems.
Mystery holes
Thanks for your reply. Thats what I figured it was doing with the ice damning but im still serching for the reason why they did it. Has anyone else ever seen this? Believe it or not the house is great on heat in the winter even with all the holes.
Reason?
Just a SWAG.
With masonite sideing over what looks like plywood sheathing they could have put the holes in the plates to create some ventilation in the stud bays to help dry them dry out. I saw a lot of siding installed directly over sheathing back in the 80's. No house wrap of felt paper used at all.
Sounds like it!
That sounds like what I got but doesn't that defeat the purpose of insulation. I don't understand the rational of it.
Rational
Building science didn't start to really develope untill the late eighties and early nineties, and it was driven by increasing energy cost. Before that it was "by guess or by gosh", meaning I've always done it that way, or this is my solutiion to a particular problem.
Even today I seldom find a builder in my area that can talk about building science and make any sense. It is very rare that I meet one who has taken the time or made the effort to stay abreast of thier trade.
I figure they put the holes in there in case the window leaks. That way the water would have a place to drain out of the stud cavity.
(-:
Seriously - People do stuff in houses for all sorts of funky reasons. It could be thet they were gonna put an outlet in one stud bay, then moved it to another, then to someplace else entirely. Or they maybe thought they'd just drill holes ev4erywhere, so they could run romex wherever they wanted to later on.
It's most likely along the lines of trying to figure out women - Just do what ya gotta do and don't over-think it.
My first thought is that maybe they figured they could somehow blow insulation in through the holes, but hard to see how anyone could figure that would work. So maybe they figured ventilation was good.
I'd cut some 1" dowel rod into chunks and use it to plug the lower holes, to deter mice from chewing through foam. Foam should work OK for the upper holes so long as you don't get attic mice.
Plugging them is a good thing.
mystery holes
I remember reading somewhere on the www about a builder getting permission to import framing lumber from Canada in the 80s because he had it predrilled. Some import regulation designed to protect US sources made importing ordinary framing stock too expensive or restricted unless it was "engineered" so he had holes drilled. Maybe an answer?
I say fill 'em. Easiest way? Foam, plaster, mortar, joint compound, wood dowel, cover them with repair plates? Don't know.