The Job
A local real estate brokerage called us five days before a Menlo Park listing was scheduled to go live. The seller's inspection had flagged two issues: wood rot on the exterior fascia and a light fixture with outdated wiring in the kitchen. Neither was a structural problem, but both would show up on the buyer's inspection and potentially complicate the sale.
The Wood Rot
The fascia rot was in two sections — one near a downspout that had been directing water against the board for years, and one at a corner joint that hadn't been properly caulked during a prior paint job. Both sections were soft to the probe and needed to be cut out completely.
We cut out the damaged sections, treated the framing behind them with borate solution, installed new primed fascia boards, caulked all joints, and primed the new wood. The carpenter's eye can still tell these are new boards — the paint will match once the homeowner repaints the exterior — but there's no rot remaining and no moisture pathway.
The Light Fixture
The kitchen fixture had been installed in the 1980s with wiring that bypassed the neutral — a common shortcut from that era that doesn't meet current code. We replaced the fixture and corrected the wiring at the box. Clean, permitted, done in two hours.
The Result
Both items were complete in three days. The listing went live on schedule. The brokerage now calls us before every listing for pre-sale repairs and punch lists — it's become an efficient relationship for everyone involved.