Hammer Time

Our home has stucco siding,mostly from the 1920's.   The foam is installed from the outside of the house by drilling holes into the wall cavities.  Summit Insulation used a hammer drill with masonry bit to drill through the stucco layer.  

Hammer drills have a clutch lock that is supposed to be engaged when drilling through wood. The setting and bit apparently weren’t changed for the solid wood and plywood sheathing – causing the sheathing to shatter where drilled.  These big openings become important later.

The blue circles surround the shattered areas - the baby blue outlet box can give an idea of the scale.

Below are two beautiful examples - close ups of the drilled areas inside of the house both on the plywood sheathing from a 1999 installation of replacement windows and the original 1920's board sheathing.  The board sheathing picture shows the hole as cleaned during the removal process.  Luckily, the wood chips from this actual location  were saved and are on display in the third photo - with a quarter for scale.  The drilled hole was supposed to be 3/8" - slightly less than 1/2 of the diameter of the quarter.

The hammered sheathing evidences lack of care on the part of the installers to us.  Every hole uncovered by the drywall/installation removal was shattered.