I live in a large condo building in San Francisco and we've found a severe case of dry rot within some of the exterior walls.
The dry rot was discovered when the sheet rock was removed from the inside of a condo during a routine remodeling project. Most of the low rise buildings in California are wood frame with stucco cladding on the outside and sheet rock on the inside. Dry rot changes solid wood to a consistency of a hard foam with a severe loss of structural characteristics. Unless the architectural cladding is removed, dry rot in the wood framing cannot be easily found by a routine inspection.
However, I'm wondering if there is some high tech method of probing the wood framing in the walls without removing the sheet rock or stucco. I was thinking about using ultrasonic or micro wave reflection or absorption to gauge the density of the wood. It seems that hard wood would be a good reflector and dry rot would be a lesser reflector.
The dry rot was discovered when the sheet rock was removed from the inside of a condo during a routine remodeling project. Most of the low rise buildings in California are wood frame with stucco cladding on the outside and sheet rock on the inside. Dry rot changes solid wood to a consistency of a hard foam with a severe loss of structural characteristics. Unless the architectural cladding is removed, dry rot in the wood framing cannot be easily found by a routine inspection.
However, I'm wondering if there is some high tech method of probing the wood framing in the walls without removing the sheet rock or stucco. I was thinking about using ultrasonic or micro wave reflection or absorption to gauge the density of the wood. It seems that hard wood would be a good reflector and dry rot would be a lesser reflector.