Home Depot, What A Mess

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RSteve

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In early winter, on a spot on the lower floor of my house, a group of pileated woodpeckers attacked my house when I wasn't home. The 1st floor siding is 5/8 texture 1-11 rough cedar. They put a very large hole in the siding, even getting into the sheathing. I had to fabricate a temporary patch until spring, when I'll have a pro contractor replace the entire panel and, perhaps, apply the same color matched steel siding that's on the second story. When I applied the patch I used two 1" x 11" x 36" constructed boards surrounded by a "picture" frame. Before putting the patch on the siding, I stained it match the siding. Unless you knew it was a patch, it looked like a decorative addition to the front of the house. For an inexplicable reason, perhaps the weather, the seam between the two 11" wide boards twisted and curled opening up the patch.

I decided to buy a panel of the siding, cut it to the appropriate size, frame, and stain it indoors than swap out the patches. I made a template of the patch and brought it to Home Depot. I took a 1-11 panel and laid out specifically where to cut it by a Home Depot employee, so I wouldn't have to cut it at home with a circular saw or jig saw. Home Depot has a great set-up for cutting panels to size. After the panel was cut, I should have measured it again before taking it home. Thankfully, the mistakes were adding extra size, so I can make corrections. Instead of 36", the panel was cut to 41".

When Home Depot opened in Mpls.-St. Paul, they aggressively hired retired tradesmen for the stores. Now, if you're age 16 and can breathe, you can get hired. I think the main deterrent to getting competent employees is that starting pay is $13.00 hour and most local groceries pay more, as does Costco.
 
Yep, used to go to HD or Lowes and they had competent associates who knew what they were selling. Now half the time you get some 18 year old bimbo who doesn't know a shingle from sheetrock. Sad.
 
In addition, since the pandemic, the older retired tradesmen, unless they really need the income, are staying out of high traffic retail stores.
 
Those birds were after food in your siding. Best to check closely for carpenter ants, termites, possibly carpenter bees.
 
Those birds were after food in your siding. Best to check closely for carpenter ants, termites, possibly carpenter bees.
Their ancestors were already pecking on the house while it was under construction. Everyone in my neighborhood with cedar or redwood siding has a problem with these woodpeckers. The MN DNR told us that the area where we built in 1983 was heavily wooded and the generations return looking for trees and where there aren't trees, they look for cedar siding, particularly rough siding.
 
They don't nest in early winter. But they do feed.

I had a pair here dismantling the roof over our back patio. They can do amazing amounts of damage in a very short time. In our case it was carpenter bees. The only solution was to remove the roof as it was compromised. A good snow would have brought it down.
 
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