New from CNY / Syracuse NY

[swamplife]

Hello GJ!

New member from the Syracuse NY area.

Two years ago, I bought a dilapidated house and garage, mainly for the garage and the low price. The house had effectively collapsed; all of the walls were broken and one entire wall of the house has been jacked close to 10'' since I've bought it.

The garage is, on paper about 500 square feet. According to my measurements, someone lengthened it by 4 or 5 feet at some point; it's a little bigger than what's listed on the tax info.

Just like the house, it's rough. The perimeter foundation has some sagging and, due to a very high water table, the sil plate and walls have rotted away. And the 2'' slab is cracked and extremely damaged. There are approximately 47 circuits in the garage. 2 breaker boxes and one fuse box. It's fun.

The good: I can fit my pickup and Jeep in the garage. It has 220v for a welder. And it has a gas line so I can run a small gas furnace.

But it's all mine and my mortgage is less than the average US car payment!

Looks like a lot of neat stuff on here! I'll be asking a lot of questions about fixing the garage (starting with slab and sill plate). At some point I do plan on doing a lean-to on the back of it and ditch the harbor freight tarp garage

My long term goals (while I'm in this hose) are a nice sized air compressor, real welder, press or two, tool storage and organization.

Hello!

 

[HOTFR8]

Welcome to the GJ.

 

[driftpin]

Show us some pics of the garage and the house especially where structural issues are evident. Oh and welcome to the Garage Journal.

 

[swamplife]

Dont have too much of the garage, but I can grab them later tonight or tomorrow.

Here's some of what I'm facing with the house

imgur.com/a/D3Cg22r

Long story short:

House was originally a single story house with the roof peak facing N-S, so 1st floor joists run E-W. 3 porches were added on between 1950 and the 70s.

They decided to build a 2nd floor and keep the roof peak the same. The southern foundation wall under the house was removed and a foundation was built under the three porches with the intention of having the E and W walls of the house be load bearing.

Something changed, the 2nd story went on with the roof peaked E-W, making the N and S walls load bearing. And not over the porch.

The house was sold in 2006 to a developer who planned on knocking it down. They ended up renting it out. One of the tennants in 2011 wanted an open concept and decided to cut 80% of the southern (load bearing) wall out. That really caused a lot of issues. The center of the house also sunk as that was pretty much all that was holding the second story up. The walls under the 2nd floor pushed down on the 1st floor and really separated everything. Also the joists run perpendicular so trying to brace anything properly is nearly impossible.

I haen't been great at documenting my work on the house, sadly, but if you folks here are interested in what I have been doing, I'll keep the pictures coming!

 

[driftpin]

Wow now we definitely want to see the pics, especially anything showing the deflection due to the removal of the load-bearing wall!

From your description, that doesn't sound like a safe place to be. How do you plan to remedy the butchery?

Pics, please.

 

[swamplife]

Here's some posts in an imgur album, I have more that I'll have to sort through https://imgur.com/a/D3Cg22r These are mostly of the contractor's mess up; most of 2017 was spent undoing all of the stuff that the contractor messed up.

I got very lucky with deflection; the porch being there helped keep the wall from bowing out on the second floor.

Unfortunately, I really got shortchanged by the home inspector who determined the house was structurally sound. It definitely was not. Now, I'm confident that it's safe as I've been working off of guidance of an engineer. Before, even a light thunderstorm would have the house swaying back and forth. When I first moved in we had a pretty good wind storm and I was so worried one night that the cat and I went out in the garage and slept in the camper.

Easiest way to do everything was just to start ripping up sub floor. I have about 6 hatches into the crawlspace currently.

What I ended up doing so far was
(1) Removing the rotten sil plate
(2) Digging in the crawl space under the missing wall and foundation 3' and pouring a ton of concrete, reinforced with rebar
(3) Tripled up the 2x8 Rim Joist, bolted it to the existing rim joist
(4) 6x6 PT piers attached to an anchored to a PT 2x8 on plastic and a 2x6 connecting them to the new rim joist sitting on the concrete.


The interior wall that is parallel to the load bearing wall that was missing Sat between two joists. Literally all that was holding the house up from collapsing was some subfloor between two completely smashed joists.

Once I had the load bearing wall back in and supported I had to push up on this wall a bit to try to straighten out the second floor.

The problem? The full dimension 2x8 joist had crushed so much that I couldn't even fit a 2x6 in. I ran 3 2x6s , bolted them together to create a beam for the 8' span and started pushing up on those. That worked surprisingly well until winter hit, I didn't have time to make a permanent support and the center sunk back down.

I have pics, I'll promise to get them!

 

[driftpin]

Have you had a site-visit from that structural engineer? It sounds like something could suddenly-fail and kill you, from what you've said.

The full dimension 2x8 joist had crushed so much that I couldn't even fit a 2x6 in. I ran 3 2x6s , bolted them together to create a beam for the 8' span and started pushing up on those. That worked surprisingly well doesn't sound like a safe place to work. Do you have someone working with you when you're jacking structural loads? Someone who could call 911 if there's a catastrophic structural failure?

 

[swamplife]

It definitely wasn't safe when I bought the house. While we were trying to develop a plan to fix the house there was a definite oh s---- moment and everyone scattered. Had the 2x8 joist crushed completely or the wall itself failed, it would have been disastrous. Now that I have the load bearing wall back in and properly supported, this wall isn't holding up much.

It was kind of neat watching this section of the house pop back up as I took the load off of it after I put in the supports and started jacking where the missing load bearing wall and foundation was.

I always have supervision nearby just in case something happens. Luckily it's finally at the point now where I'm done with structural jacking and juggling. I did have a 20T jack blow out while I was under the house. It was due to my own stupidity. I was getting way too ambitious. Everything that's left is just punky and saggy old joists and getting the floor somewhat level-ish.

 

[48RON54]

Thanks for sharing and welcome to the site! Great pics and info

 

[danfromsyr]

Small world.
Waves from Cicero,

I'm over off Mudmill road. and while not as bad as yours I'm doing similar to my early 1800's house.
Dan

 

[NeubCont]

Welcome aboard!
Great info here!

 

[swamplife]

Small world.
Waves from Cicero,

I'm over off Mudmill road. and while not as bad as yours I'm doing similar to my early 1800's house.
Dan

Yep! Wouldn't have thought someone would be nearby. I'm on the other side of the River but still in Brewerton.

My parents have an early 1800s house. Everything is so strange; nothing is standardized on it. Mine was at least built in the 50s or 30s so some stuff is normal.