sinking floor advice, eaten joists

[jb3]

not really garage related, but figured id ask opinions from you knowledgable folk.

old house, could be about 150-200 years old. got a couple original joists that were long ago eaten by beetles, at some point someone built a really heavy duty looking wood structure right under the damaged beam. seems weird to me because the whole weight is still on the bad beam, which is still compressing. plus there are a couple freaky looking angle iron T shaped things that really bother me.

there are some other weird solutions, but basically i want to fix this properly so i can sleep at night, and move the support next to the beam? would this be right? it just strikes me as wrong to compress the weakened joist with the weight still on it, the place still seems like it would sink as the joist breaks apart.

the floor is not moving fast, in fact there are built ins in the room above that compensate for the floor movement, were probably installed 50 years ago, but the floor above is drooped a lot and might not be tolerable long term.

i took a lot of pics only to have my file get corrupted, will take some more tomorrow.

 

[jb3]

whoops!
meant to post this in general garage discussion.

this is why smart phones are dangerous, can a mod pleass move for me?
thanks!

 

[Zeke]

Don't do anything with your pics while they are loading and your files won't go south.

Waiting for pics. Meanwhile search "sister joist."

 

[jb3]

Don't do anything with your pics while they are loading and your files won't go south.

Waiting for pics. Meanwhile search "sister joist."

they are stuck on the phone somehow, the hell with it, ill bust out the old digital camera which always works tomorrow

will definitely look at sister joists, whats going on down there is weird

 

[jb3]

ok pics finally of the issue-

here you can see sort of how the floor looks. If you look at the baseboard heater, you can see the lines diverge between flat and dip. This is much more pronounced in person-



underneath is this add on structure supporting the floor, the vertical beams and heavy timber its supporting, yes that huge heavy beam is twisted on the pole. Definitely want to get that back to a straight position-



here is a close up of the floor joists sandwiched between the beam and the floor, you can see why they supported it, where the edge was eaten and slipped-



this is the most damaged original joist sort of crunched between the beam and floor, this is right under the floor dip-



Here are the metal things that freak me out, these beams are huge, 10 by 10 or 12 by 12, and the end of one meets the middle of the other attached with this metal piece and no pole supporting the connection, which is why that earlier pic of the twisted beam looks like that. I think a lolly column would have me sleeping better, but the huge beam is actually bowing where this connection is being made in addition to the twist




as an aside, this place is so old that im not worrying about trying to get things level, I just want to arrest movement for the long term, with the joist not continuing to crush over time

 

[sands35]

Wow. How much do you want to spend? Or more accurately, how much is the house worth to you?

More or less, the whole side of the house needs to be jacked up and the beams replaced. It looks like the foundation is solid though. The welds on the metal braces have held so far. As long as you don't substantially change the loading on them, they should be fine until you get to doing the job.

This is something that will require an engineer to develop the right floor joist specs. The tools to do it are not special. Just a lot of big beams and bottle jacks. Not something that can be DIYed without experience though.

What does the roof line look like? Rest of the beams in the house?

You will want to see if the rot extends up into the walls. Balloon construction? Scabbing in new wall beams isn't terribly hard. It just takes labor to get behind the siding. You might come out ahead (but not financially) with better insulation and utilities in that part of the house.

What is the exterior finish? I'll bet the inside is plaster on lath. I refinished a few rooms in my parents house (early 1900 foundation, house in 1920s) with plaster on lath. We needed metal blades to cut through the ash lath. Stuff was hard as a rock.

This is definitely a summer job in RI. Looks like you have baseboard heat fed by hot water? take out the copper to get it out of the way and replace with PEX after the job is done.

The real headache with stuff like this is the existing utilities in the walls.

 

[wrenchguy]

Wow. How much do you want to spend? Or more accurately, how much is the house worth to you?

More or less, the whole side of the house needs to be jacked up and the beams replaced. It looks like the foundation is solid though. The welds on the metal braces have held so far. As long as you don't substantially change the loading on them, they should be fine until you get to doing the job.

You will want to see if the rot extends up into the walls. Balloon construction? Scabbing in new wall beams isn't terribly hard.

The real headache with stuff like this is the existing utilities in the walls.

+1, why did u move there? Whats the grade look like outside?

 

[jb3]

Wow. How much do you want to spend? Or more accurately, how much is the house worth to you?

More or less, the whole side of the house needs to be jacked up and the beams replaced. It looks like the foundation is solid though. The welds on the metal braces have held so far. As long as you don't substantially change the loading on them, they should be fine until you get to doing the job.

What does the roof line look like? Rest of the beams in the house?

You will want to see if the rot extends up into the walls. Balloon construction? Scabbing in new wall beams isn't terribly hard. It just takes labor to get behind the siding. You might come out ahead (but not financially) with better insulation and utilities in that part of the house.

This is definitely a summer job in RI. Looks like you have baseboard heat fed by hot water? take out the copper to get it out of the way and replace with PEX after the job is done.

The real headache with stuff like this is the existing utilities in the walls.

the rest of the building is in great shape, and these damaged sections the continued beetle infestation was arrested long ago, nothing current still happening fortunately, just dealing with the aftermath.

The roof line is great, whole house has new wood siding on it, new roofs new heating, ect. Apart from this structural concern here, its a solid place.

Ill show you some other pics of basement construction-

all floor joists are notched, and all are only spanning maximum about 15 feet between the exterior foundation, and the interior root cellar holding up the fireplaces

central fireplace foundation-



other floor joists, notched wood on wood, theres a reason this building has stood for more than a century, IF if fix this issue-

 

[jb3]

+1, why did u move there? Whats the grade look like outside?

lol, I got a lot for my money, with the understanding that I would have to do work like this and a heck of a lot of painting. 3 acres, 4 buildings, grade is sloped rocky shelf for the most part.

I could recover my investment by subdividing and selling off parcels, but want to live there, so its relatively low risk

 

[sands35]

I love those old NE homes! Pesky beetles!

I asked about the exterior as there might be some cosmetic work that is required after jacking the corner ~3-4 inches.

(FYI - I edited my original post)

 

[jb3]

What does the roof line look like? Rest of the beams in the house?

You will want to see if the rot extends up into the walls. Balloon construction?

Some other pics of the roof construction

roof is nice and straight and has new asphalt shingles on it (despite some collar beam weirdnesses you see in this pic-



check out this collar tie construction. mortise and tennon with a peg to anchor it. One of the things about this estate sale is we have no idea how old this building is. One thing for sure is that its not 1920 like the sale listed.-

 

[jb3]

I love those old NE homes! Pesky beetles!

I asked about the exterior as there might be some cosmetic work that is required after jacking the corner ~3-4 inches.

(FYI - I edited my original post)

the PO resided the whole house with new wood siding, so that will probably need to be repaired if we fix this properly, but it needs paint, so now is the time im thinking

right before we bought this we looked at a 1730 house that was almost identical in construction to this one, but powder post beetles had digested the whole front of the building. I hate the damn things more than carpenter ants or termites, as they don't leave as many exterior holes in the wood of the beam from what ive seen, stuff looks better than it really is. I put a 10 inch probe right through the side of the building on that one.

I do have an appointment with an expert restoration guy to come look at this issue for me, I will limit myself to putting a lolly column under that metal piece to give myself some peace of mind

garage journal has such useful tidbits of info that I pick up though, i thought Id post and see what people say.

 

[southalabama]

Maybe this old house will do it for free.

Looks like a job for a structural engineer the silva brothers construction.

 

[Scott65]

This is not a bad a job as you may think. It is a matter of slowly jacking it back into place and installing new floor joists. The biggest issue is the wood flooring over the top of the subfloor. You will need to get down to the sub level in order to refasten it to the new joists.

Looks like great construction and you can see why it is still standing. I might consider removing the wood floor and the subfloor and then looking to replace the joists.
Good luck!

 

[little d]

Had a job kinda like this when I was in the trade on a newer house though, the guy had his dryer vented into the crawl space, rotted the floor joist.

What I did was, coming back to the good part of the joist, I put a beam, 6by6 across the bottom of the joist with several blocks on the ground and jacks. It took a week but, I'd come by and jack up the beam a little at a time until it was a little higher then it needed to be, ya don't need much so don't over do this.

After that, I cut new floor joist and sister-ed them to the rotting ones, extending over the beam and sill plate (ya gotta use a sledge hammer to stand them up). Then I went on the outside and pulled off the bottom of the siding, cut out the bad header joist and sill plate and replaced them.

After I got everything in that needed to be, I blocked the beam up and let the jacks down, got lucky and every thing settled level (you may need to do some shimming). Then I went back to the outside and nailed the joists to the header joist and nailed the sister joists to the old ones, replaced the siding and as far as I know, to this day, ya cant tell I ever did anything to it.

On a side note, after I was done, most of the cracks closed up and I had very little taping and mudding to do but, if ya rush it..............like my Dad taught me; these houses are like women, you can have your way with them but, ya gotta be gentle and the older they are, the more gentle ya gotta be.

 

[12ozd]

Got any pics of the outside?
(I like old houses)

 

[pauls_workshop]

Hi some good posts above. You should have a structural engineer review your house and make the recommendations, whether you do the work or hire it done. It was not done right 40 years back. There are different ways you can fix it but those beams have to be replaced. Don't let it go too long as the whole house could cave in at some point until it is repaired. - Paul

 

[jb3]

Got any pics of the outside?
(I like old houses)

place looks pretty solid from the outside. the wife and I like the building, intend to fix and live there. And of course, for garage content, it has an awesome garage on it.

I have a garage gallery thread started on my endless plans there assuming my money trees start flowering soon

 

[jb3]

Maybe this old house will do it for free.

Looks like a job for a structural engineer the silva brothers construction.

This is not a bad a job as you may think. It is a matter of slowly jacking it back into place and installing new floor joists. The biggest issue is the wood flooring over the top of the subfloor. You will need to get down to the sub level in order to refasten it to the new joists.

Looks like great construction and you can see why it is still standing. I might consider removing the wood floor and the subfloor and then looking to replace the joists.
Good luck!

Had a job kinda like this when I was in the trade on a newer house though, the guy had his dryer vented into the crawl space, rotted the floor joist.

What I did was, coming back to the good part of the joist, I put a beam, 6by6 across the bottom of the joist with several blocks on the ground and jacks. It took a week but, I'd come by and jack up the beam a little at a time until it was a little higher then it needed to be, ya don't need much so don't over do this.

After that, I cut new floor joist and sister-ed them to the rotting ones, extending over the beam and sill plate (ya gotta use a sledge hammer to stand them up). Then I went on the outside and pulled off the bottom of the siding, cut out the bad header joist and sill plate and replaced them.

After I got everything in that needed to be, I blocked the beam up and let the jacks down, got lucky and every thing settled level (you may need to do some shimming). Then I went back to the outside and nailed the joists to the header joist and nailed the sister joists to the old ones, replaced the siding and as far as I know, to this day, ya cant tell I ever did anything to it.

On a side note, after I was done, most of the cracks closed up and I had very little taping and mudding to do but, if ya rush it..............like my Dad taught me; these houses are like women, you can have your way with them but, ya gotta be gentle and the older they are, the more gentle ya gotta be.

Hi some good posts above. You should have a structural engineer review your house and make the recommendations, whether you do the work or hire it done. It was not done right 40 years back. There are different ways you can fix it but those beams have to be replaced. Don't let it go too long as the whole house could cave in at some point until it is repaired. - Paul

this is some great advice, guys, thanks!
this is why I love this forum

I have a quasi experienced friend who said some similar things, that the repair is not as difficult as I expected, but just labor intensive and time intensive. he gave me the contact info for the expert, and I also have a structural engineer im calling in, but the thing Im most afraid of is getting comfortable because its been like that forever, and suddenly something happening in 10 years or so, which would be an issue

 

[12ozd]

Well I can certainly see why you would want to stay there!
That is beautiful.
Any guess on the age of the house or addition?

 

[jb3]

Well I can certainly see why you would want to stay there!
That is beautiful.
Any guess on the age of the house or addition?

between 1800 and 1850 for the house I think. The addition was originally an open lean to, there may have always been something there for farm stuff though, some of the beams are hand hewn. The whole addition structure was rebuilt by the owner in 1980 using a mix of what was available, so its got quite a mix of age on parts of it.

 

[jb3]

So ive had a structural guy for old houses come by and pest people.

On the pest end, ive definitely got powder post beetles active in parts of the basement, so taking some action there with pest control and lowering the humidity of the area as much as I can (since they love that).

On the structure, the guy said and I quote "this was done wrong by someone who really knew what they were doing". He elaborated to say that the PO arrested the sagging, but never actually fixed the damaged joists correctly, AND, that his interim fix actually will make this harder to repair properly since the problem is covered by the half repair, and the half repair was done so long ago that its got tons of plumbing and wiring through it, so all that needs to be moved to fix this.

The PO went to the trouble of residing the entire building and fixing walls, so as soon as we jack it up in any way, we open a pandoras box of additional damage to those repairs.

I probably need to do about 25 feet of sill, and about 8 to 10 floor joists replaced. This will take the construction of maybe 5 temporary walls in teh basement to hold up the house, removal of considerable plumbing and wiring, then removal of the temp repair, and finally removal of the damaged joists and sill plate.
The problem that the structural guy points out to me is that this guy was obviously a great carpenter, and has done a great job covering up issues in places instead of 100% dealing with them, so there are places where new board is sistered in that might have to be removed to see what this guy actually did behind the board. Was an educational discussion, when I bought the house I knew this was the major problem, but now I know specifics a bit better.

Moving to cost.

He has no idea what this will cost and was honest about it. In debate this repair might cost between 8 and 20 grand to fix. He pointed out that these old buildings are build like old furniture, and the studs in the walls are mostl likely all mortise and tennon into the sill, just like the joists are all mortise and tennon into the major beams. Meaning a lot of stuff might have to be cut and impacted to get things apart, much more so than a newer house.

Gonna start saving, in the mean time, Im buying 10 lolly columns to double the vertical support beams and it wont go anywhere for sure. Hopefully this guy isn't retired by the time we can actually afford to do this. Fortunately with pest treatment and humidity loss, I can arrest the beetle munching and it can stay as is for another 30 years if need be.

 

[1grnlwn]

Engineer pretty much stated the obvious. I wonder if sistering the beams (looks like there is more than 1) on both sides and use structural angle iron tru bolted to lower beam to carry the load off beatled beam. You would probably need a jack-able support wall on both sides and just jack slowly over a weeks time. You would only jack until new problems (cracks etc) start to appear. May have to temp hook electrical and plumbing. It is a mess for sure. Get out a legal pad (need the extra length) and start writing a plan. IMO too much money to bring it back to original condition but you can make it safe and stop deterioration.

 

[jb3]

Engineer pretty much stated the obvious. I wonder if sistering the beams (looks like there is more than 1) on both sides and use structural angle iron tru bolted to lower beam to carry the load off beatled beam. You would probably need a jack-able support wall on both sides and just jack slowly over a weeks time. You would only jack until new problems (cracks etc) start to appear. May have to temp hook electrical and plumbing. It is a mess for sure. Get out a legal pad (need the extra length) and start writing a plan. IMO too much money to bring it back to original condition but you can make it safe and stop deterioration.

he did point out some other stuff, but yeah, definitely just reinforced my current observations (and gave me a starting budget number which was actually less than I thought it might be when I looked at the place, so silver lining there). The second floor is flat, and he had some great solutions for leveling the floor out after the fact on the first floor, but definitely agree, structure is not going back up 3 inches in places on that side. Plan is to replace the beams and leave it where it is.

My plan is to hide most of the dramatic dip with a deep built in cabinet in that first floor room.

Will cost about 600 bucks to poison the beetles, and another couple hundred for columns everywhere, but then it should be fine until I decide to fix it. Researching the poison first before signing on the dotted line

 

[1grnlwn]

Sounds like a plan. Get ya a industrial dust buster for all those dead beetles.

 

[Kevin54]

A few years back, a co-worker had the same problem. The joist where they were cut and tired into the beam had split. He was wanting to put new flooring down, and one other room, some contractors had shimmed up the complete floor using different layers of cardboard, to try and level it, then put carpet down.

I told him to take everything out of the room, and we'll have it fixed in two evenings after work.

We pulled up all of the floor, cut out all of the joist back to the outer foundation, supported the inner wall from the basement.

Evening number 2, we put in new joist hangars, all new floor joist, and new subfloor down.

It's not worth dicking around trying to cobble up what has sunk down over the years, and sister stuff up. Shore up the walls by having a supporting wall underneath, then level things up with new lumber.

 

[sands35]

^^ that might actually be the simplest thing. Take it all out but for the walls. Jack them up to get new sill plates in there and put in totally new floors.

 

[Rod N]

Love old houses.

I'm not an engineer of any type, but can you not simplify this?

Do you use the basement? If not, support and sister the hell out of it and spend money on the garage?

It gives it character (if it's totally safe)

Just saying .....

 

[jb3]

finally in a position to fix this!
will be a couple weeks, but the contractor may start late winter or early spring. I will be working with him as labor, so should be very educational for future projects

 

[AZ Pete]

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[jb3]

some repairs have been made, ill post some pics later on.

things are both better and worse than we expected. Primary worse thing was that this massive timber structure built by the PO has 10 heavy rough cut legs. Well all but one are rotten from standing directly on the floor. 4 were actually still holding up the frame.

A total of 6 were holding nothing, so the heavy frame designed to support the damaged timber was in fact hanging off the damaged timber instead. all have been replaced with pressure treated posts and jacked back up.

positive news was the sill is good