By the time water damage is obvious from the outside, it has usually been going on a long time. Walls hide it well. The cladding looks fine, the paint looks fine, and behind them sheathing has been damp long enough to lose its strength. The tells are indirect: a stain that keeps returning on drywall inside, a wall that gives when you press it, fasteners backing out, a musty smell in a closet on an exterior wall, or trim that will not hold paint through a season.
The damage is not really the problem. It is the record of one. Water arrived somewhere, ran somewhere, and sat. Replacing wet sheathing without establishing how it got wet hands you a new wall on the same countdown as the old one. Every honest version of this job starts by identifying the entry point, and the entry point is frequently nowhere near where the damage shows, because water travels down and sideways before it stops.
This is the hardest exterior job to price sight unseen, and anyone who does is guessing. The investigation itself is small work. What follows depends entirely on how far the water traveled: one wet bay under a window is a different job than an elevation with soft sheathing across it. Framing damage, where it exists, changes the conversation again. Wall area, stories, access, and how much cladding has to come off to reach the damage all matter, and so does whether the source belongs to the wall or to another trade entirely.
Usually you do not, not from outside. The signals are indirect: interior staining that keeps returning, a wall that feels soft or spongy under hand pressure, fasteners pushing out, trim that will not hold paint, or a musty smell along an exterior wall. Any one of those is reason enough to have somebody probe or cut a small test opening rather than wait for something obvious.
No. Sheathing takes it first, because it is the layer holding moisture against itself. Framing is often fine, especially when the wetting was seasonal rather than constant. The leaks that reach studs and rim joists tend to be the long, slow ones at a deck ledger or a window sill. When framing is involved, it should be pointed out plainly and photographed.
It depends on the cause and on your policy, and that is genuinely between you and your carrier. Sudden events are usually treated differently from long-term seepage. What helps in either direction is documentation: photos of what the wall looked like when it was opened, where the water was entering, and how far the damage ran.
Then that gets fixed first, as its own job, before the wall is closed up. We are direct about that because rebuilding a wall under an active source is wasted work and everybody knows it. The wall repair is still wall work. It just has to happen in the right order, and the order is always source first.
Re-cladding a whole house or a single elevation. The value is not only new panels. It is that the wall is open for the first time in decades, so flashing, the barrier, and any soft sheathing get dealt with while you can see them.
Learn more →A branch through a panel, a run of cracked boards, wind damage on one wall. Repair is often the honest answer, as long as the wall behind is sound and whatever caused the damage has stopped. Matching a weathered wall is the harder part.
Learn more →Stucco is everywhere in Utah, and most stucco problems are water getting in behind it and being unable to dry, rather than the stucco itself failing. Cracking is where the call starts, and where the crack runs decides how seriously to take it.
Learn more →Fascia, soffit, corner boards, and casing around openings. This is finish carpentry that doubles as water detailing, and rot here usually points at gutters, the roof edge, or a transition that has been shedding water into the wall.
Learn more →A minute of detail now saves an hour of guessing later, on both ends.
