Glitter in the Attic

[Ben H]

When I opened the hatch and shined my light up I noticed a sparkly substance all over a rafter board. Once I got in there, I noticed they were on all 4 "corner" rafters only (hipped roof). It was all gold and sparkley. Kinda like disco. It appears to be tiny dried sap balls. But why would it ONLY be on the 4 corner boards and the not the entire attic? Is this something to be conserned about?

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[Scottpat]

It is just sap.

[kurt]

Yep, sap. It's on the corners because those are probably old growth Douglas Fir.

When I was framing, we'd always use doug fir for the hips; it's stronger and we could get it in longer lengths (usually necessary for hip rafters).

[Ben H]

Thats what I thought, but I wanted to get a second set of eyes. Thanks guys! The house was built in 02. I didn't think any old growth stuff was still around...

[kurt]

Well, in '02 it might not be old growth......it's probably fir, though.

[Jim Morrison]

Definitely not old growth, but it does look like fir.

[mgbinspect]

When I see this, I do always look around to make certain it isn't the result of a poorly ventilated and excessivley hot attic.

[John Kogel]

That's just a bit of pitch. A lot of pitch can be pretty impressive. We see this in the older places, 100% old growth Df. This pic from last week, looks like drops have been falling on the new insulation.

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The soffits were sealed up with stucco on these old houses. They probably should have cut new soffit vents before adding the insulation.

[hausdok]

Yeah,

The grain and coloring says that the hip rafters are definitely DF. We see a lot of that around here where there's a ton of DF in the older houses.

OT - OF!!!

Mike

[kurt]

That's just a bit of pitch. A lot of pitch can be pretty impressive. We see this in the older places, 100% old growth Df. This pic from last week, looks like drops have been falling on the new insulation.

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The soffits were sealed up with stucco on these old houses. They probably should have cut new soffit vents before adding the insulation.

True enough. There's a ton of places in the close in 'burbs that were all built with the old growth DF; I've seen literal "icicles" of pitch coming out of some of them.

[Tom Raymond]

Around here most of the fir we see is Hem Fir. Any Doug Fir is almost always refered to as green, meaning air dried, which would certainly explain the pitch. Lots less prevalent in kiln dried wood.

Tom

[Chad Fabry]

Hem fir is a lumber designation that means the lumber is from the hemlock family or fir family; douglas fir is a species.

If I'm hard to understand it's because I have little phylum in my throat.

[Tom Raymond]

Yeah but...there won't be any douglas fir in a batch of hem fir here. There are plenty of hemlocks and smaller firs here that will be in the mix, but doug fir has to be shipped here from the West, and as such there is a premium for it above and beyond the premium for hem fir, if you can find it at all.

Because your a wordy guy and I thought you'd like to know, I think you might have phloem in your throat. If that's the case just swallow, 'cause it's xylem up and phloem down.

Tom

[Bob White]

Does jumping from plant kingdom scientific nomenclature to plant anatomy constitute thread drift?