I mentioned in my last post that I was going to try to get another window put in. Well, I did. It took the better half of my Saturday, but I now have the double window put in. Then just this past weekend, we were able to put in one of the smaller bedroom windows. That’s two windows in two Saturdays. Thanks to my brother-in-law for his help on both.
On this most recent window install, we found hundreds of ants that had made their nest in the insulation beneath the rotting window frame.
It was obvious from the exterior that this particular window frame was quite rotted, but we had no idea of the ants that were calling the wet insulation ‘home.’ I can only imagine the bottom right corner was the ants’ front door. I managed to catch a few of the ants in a glass as they scurried away from my shop-vac of death. Although there is no scale for size, the largest ones were close to an inch long. I did manage to snap a few pics of one of the condemned tenants before ushering him to the afterlife with Raid.
From what I found in a short internet search, they are called black carpenter ants or Ohio black ants. It looked as though they were tunneling only through the pink insulation, I didn’t see any evidence of them munching on the wood frame; no sawdust or chew marks so they’re probably just ants. It’s comforting to know those ants will be having quite a difficult time if they think they attempt to chew through the new vinyl window frames.
We nearly have this window gig down to a science. Or at least we are getting much faster at taking the shingles off without breaking them. Also, we discovered a hidden cove of cedar shingles in like-new condition. At some point in history, a previous owner closed in the back half of the garage porch making it a lean-to shed. This left a large wall of cedar shingles that have been protected from the weather for all those years. Well, no one is going to miss them from inside the shed. So I have been removing them to replace bad or broken shingles we encounter while replacing the windows. As you can read in this post from the first window we replaced, new construction windows are a lot of work. Not only is there removing woodwork on the inside, but completely removing all the shingles around the window on the outside. But it is worth the hours it takes knowing that the windows are virtually maintenance free and much more efficient than the poorly insulated and half rotted windows we are removing.
Up and Adam [Ries] 