Many have experienced cases of "dry rot" in the ceilings, walls or floors of their homes or RVs. And no doubt the cause has always been some sort of water leak or moisture problem. Then came the nightmares of getting the damaged wood removed and replaced so that "dry rot" would not do further damage.

Well I think it's all a myth. Based on some information I discovered when researching how to overcome a "dry rot" problem in my own house, I say that once you fix the leak (or moisture retention problem), the dry wood will, in fact, not continue to rot. If plausible, then doing dry rot repairs is completely unnecessary in most cases. If there's enough healthy wood remaining to maintain structural integrity, then all that needs to be done is to fix the leak and be sure the area is dry before covering things back up.

You can't believe everything you read, so I'm not 100% sure I'm right on this. Maybe there is something the MYTHBUSTERS can do to help. Does wood really "dry rot" in the absence of moisture?

Rot is caused various microbes and other critters getting in and eating out the wood.

Once you get rot, something is in there eating the wood. Even if you kill whatever is causing the rot, the damage has already been done. Unless your house is built out of living trees, wood does nor repair itself.

Dry rot should be more properly termed, "dried rot". Once it's dry the rotting is stopped, but that's the good news. The bad news is that dry rot is just like a sponge. It sucks water from any source and once it's wet the rotting starts again. On a boat, it WILL find a way to get saturated again. You also have at least some structural damage and it usually goes beyond what you can see or feel.

A variety of products are available that take advantage of the sponge like quality and will soak in and harden. This firms up an area but I don't trust it to return the structural strength. It will hold a screw but the strength of the screw is questionable.