bowing garage wall

[BUGEYEDBRIT]

Hi all,

I have an issue with my one of my garage walls, its starting to bow outwards approximately in the middle of the wall (its 22 feet from front to back), there is a metal tube (no idea what its called, its like a reverse screw jack) that spans the garage tying the two side walls together at the site of the bow. I can see a large nut outside on each wall, would I be correct in thinking I can tighten this nut and it may bring the wall to a more true state?


Thanks in advance!

Bugeyed

 

[RWorth]

I'd have to see it, but you are probably right.

 

[Bluedodge]

More than likely. Take a look in the middle and see if there's a turnbuckle to turn instead.
Either way, look at the threads to make sure they're righty tighty/lefty loosey.
If ya start turning it and hear wood cracking, ya may want to install a couple additional cables or rods to pull everything back up square.

 

[oldcpecdr]

Do you have a "bugeye" parked in there ?

Mike B

 

[BUGEYEDBRIT]

Do you have a "bugeye" parked in there ?

Mike B

yep - directly next to the wall in question, so I have to be a bit careful.

 

[BUGEYEDBRIT]

This is the nut, not even a normal looking one!

 

[RWorth]

I'd lube that baby up with some WD40 for a few days before you start playing with it.

PS. that looks like some buddy cut a turn-buckle in half

 

[astroracer]

And the thread is LH in the pic...

 

[Firebrick43]

Tension rods like this are vey common in old structures with rafters around here, especially corn cribs but commonly in old carriage houses/garages. The weight of the roof slowly sags the ridge board and then transfers it's force through the rafters pushing out on the wall. The bottom cord on a truss takes this force. I have added such rods or steel cables to a couple of old barns to stabilize them. Adding a post in the center of the ridge helps tremendously as well. The issue is the rod is/was added more than likely later to correct the wall bowing and should have permanently solved the issue.

So have you added weight by re roofing and not removing shingles? Has the ridge board failed? Has the wood/material where the nut/washer bears against become rotten? Has the rod rusted significantly in diameter and now is or has failing/elongating and needs replacement.

I would personally remove your car and add large eyes adjacent to the rod and uses heavy chain or cable (with a screw type load binder) to hold things while you remove and inspect such rod. Tightening the nut may just snap it and bad things including collapse could be possible depending on the structure.

Many of the corn cribs used 12" disk blades as a washer to spread the load where the nut beared against.

 

[Firebrick43]

In the picture what is the nut against? Aluminum?

 

[BUGEYEDBRIT]

the nut(such as it is) is holding against a large steel washer, the wood isn't great, I saw carpenter ants further along the structure, who are a previously unknown issue, currently when I try and turn the nut the threaded rod seems to turn as well, the nut and thread are rusted together.

I re-roofed the structure a couple of years ago, taking it back down to the deck,cleaning off all the old roof shingles, so there is not excessive weight on it, and I added collar ties to stop the roof spreading as well, and the ridge board is good.

At one point the base of each wall looked like this:



All this is now fresh pressure treated timber.

 

[kbs2244]

I would leave the current brace alone and add 2 new ones.
One 12 to 18 inches to each side.
Get some one inch forged eye bolts long enough to get through your wall
Use some 4 inch angle iron spanning the two holes with at least 6 inches past the holes to act as your washer.
Install the eye bolts with the eyes to the inside.
Get some big turn buckles ( the kind the power co.s use brace their poles.)
The turn buckles are hooked to the eye bolts and each other by chain or wire rope and tightened to pull the wall back into place.
This keep all the threads out of the weather.
Go slow on the pulling a turn or two a day will be fine.
You need to allow the nailed joints time to get back in place.
It has taken years to get to where they are so don't try and fix it in an hour.

Check out a wire braced power pole for the general idea.
The local power co. may be a good place to fine a couple of guys with experience to do this for you.
If you get the eye bolts and angle iron in place it would be a good rainy day project for them. (They cannot work in the wet.)

 

[BUGEYEDBRIT]

I got the nut to loosen in the end, and on removing it, found the nut was adjusted as far as it would go, in that there was no thread left to turn it against, so I put a lump of pressure treated lumber over the end, then threw the big washer back on and tightened the nut back up, so now there is about a 1 1/2 inches of thread to turn against:




I just need to find a way to turn the nut sufficiently to move the wall back in.

As you can just see though, the tree was touching the garage yesterday, so I have at least got daylight between them again!

 

[p_mori7]

OP; If I were in your shoes, I would definitely look into the structural reliability of my garage very soon before putting my classic car back in there. It sounds like your roof wants to splay out the side walls (rafters with no collar ties maybe ?). It looks like the carpenter ants have gotten all the way to the top plate...there could be some serious forces at work that might have some bad consequences this winter when snow builds up on that roof.

 

[BUGEYEDBRIT]

I already installed collar ties on each of the rafters, the roof is stable, I was up on it today with no issues. The carpenter ants are a new thing, but I already dealt with termites as well.

This was what was left of one of the corners:

 

[BUGEYEDBRIT]

I found a way to turn the half turnbuckle nut, I got an c$8 pipe wrench from Habitat for Humanity, then added a c$4 pipe from the local hardware store to give me some more leverage:



I got a lot more turns on the nut....



I'll leave it to settle for a couple of days and give it another go, the wall is now noticeably less bowed than before (phew!)