Straightening and Reinforcing Garage

[AndrewDouglasBird]

Some of you may have seen in my other thread about my garage door gap, the walls of my garage were bowing out several inches and the boards running across to each wall were tearing out of the studs they were mounted to.

Temp fix

Pulled WAY away.

Temp fix

This one split the stud in half.

Temp fix

So all of that got torn down and 3 new 2x6s were put up in their place. A come a long was used to pull the walls back together. Screwed a d-ring mount in the top plate on each side with 2-1/5" long 3/8" diameter lag bolts. Worked great.

Next came cross bracing and re-hanging the garage door opener.

Also re-structured the door track hangers. They were mounted poorly before. Now they are rock solid. You can also see the d-ring used to pull the walls together.

Then, finally, supports up to the rafters were added. These added a TON of rigidity. Even with all the previous bracing, the 2x6s would flex down a lot with little weight. Now bouncing on them barely moves them.

Still need to run power to the garage door opener, plus add a few lights back in that were taken down. All in all, THAT WAS A LOT OF WORK!

Did I mention this is a rental? lol

 

[CNGsaves]

Your landlord better be dropping off beer and HD penny deals at your house !!

Nice work there OP to stiffen up the old beauty. You're golden as a renter !!

 

[matt_i]

Great use of pocket holes! Nice job on strengthening. As above, your landlord should at the very minimum discount your rent by the cost of materials....

 

[chruler]

Funny how, even if the landlord doesn't step up, most of us guys would do this just to protect our own stuff inside! It's tough being a tool junkie sometimes!

Nice job shoring it up.

 

[jwhcars]

Nice job of fixing your rental garage.

 

[AndrewDouglasBird]

Thanks guys.

I'm going to ask the landlord if he is willing to knock some off my rent for a month. This ended up being a lot more work than expected.

I spent the day re-wiring the garage as there was only one outlet and half the lights were taken out during the re-construction. I added two more outlets and a junction box to properly contain the ball of tape and wire that is where the power currently comes in.

Got everything installed, just need to turn the power off to finish up tomorrow.

 

[James-W]

You certainly made a HUGE improvement over what was there before. The roof looks like it has gotten wet in the past and may be a bit rotten in places. Projects like that can turn into a whole lot more work than you originally thought it would be. I know first hand about that from helping friends with their projects and even from a couple projects of my own.

 

[AndrewDouglasBird]

While the roof does look a bit rough, it is still in very good shape. I was up there when I was installing the diagonal supports and everything was very solid. It was definitely wet at one point, but is all dry now and hasn't rotted. I think it likely had a bad roof, but now is sealed up properly.

 

[Cyberbear]

It looks like you found the solution to your roof problem, but you may wish to also consider some nail on metal brackets to reinforce the stud to top plate connections, especially if you live in a quake prone area.

 

[AndrewDouglasBird]

No quakes here.

There are (8) #9 3" screws per end on the 2x6 supports. I feel like that should be plenty for the application.

If I did want to add metal supports, what type should I use?