"Dr_Watson" (dr_watson)
10/24/2020 at 23:32 • Filed to: Old house problems
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"Dr_Watson" (dr_watson)
10/24/2020 at 23:32 • Filed to: Old house problems | 1
| 11 |
Had to go under my 170 year old house to find out why my kitchen was sinking and the doors on either side stopped closing.
Found 2 split floor joists. This is the worst one:
But the other wasn’t much better.
Had a structural engineer look at it and quote the damage. He found 2 more nearby so that was 4 fucked joists in a row. They came by and sistered all 4, dug holes and poured two 1ft square blocks of cement, put in a cross beam under the broken joists and two footers on the blocks.
Jacking the house back up went well, doors shut again. Fucking amazing. They did it in 6 hours with only 2 days of waiting for a very reasonable $3200. I think I won the contractors pyramid game. I got it fast, good, and cheap.
Sadly the engineer informed me this is probably happening all over the house due to its age and construction style. So now we have to decide to move or spend big dollars rehabbing the entire 1st story. Yay!
ttyymmnn
> Dr_Watson
10/24/2020 at 23:51 |
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I fear the concrete slab under my house is rotten. It’s pretty common in this neighborhood. I’m hoping the house doesn’t fall down before I die. But that’s going to be another 30 years or so (hopefully).
Just Jeepin'
> Dr_Watson
10/25/2020 at 00:03 |
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3200? That’s amazing. I haven’t priced that out, but it sure seems like a heck of a deal.
shop-teacher
> Dr_Watson
10/25/2020 at 00:17 |
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Excellent!
That’s one of those jobs where you both got a reasonable price, and the contractor had a nice profitable day. Everybody’s happy!
If you can get to all the other joists, you could preemptively sister them before they crack. It wouldn't be too costly of a job.
MiniGTI - now with XJ6
> Dr_Watson
10/25/2020 at 02:04 |
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Whoa, good to fix that. I’m mildly concerned that the foundation to the addition in the back of my house has sunk maybe as much as an inch since it was built probably in the 70s, at least where it joins the original house.
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Dr_Watson
> MiniGTI - now with XJ6
10/25/2020 at 09:14 |
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Ouch, foundation trouble doesn’t sound cheap. Additions are always a crap shoot. There’s an addition room on the back of my house that was done on the cheap in the 1 970's . The ceiling rafters are a not recommend 30" apart so the drywall didn’t have enough to hang into and eventually fell down last summer in the high heat. Replaced it with some light ceiling planks.
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Dr_Watson
> Just Jeepin'
10/25/2020 at 09:15 |
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I was very happy with the price. Especially since they were doing it all in a crawl space not a basement.
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Dr_Watson
> shop-teacher
10/25/2020 at 09:25 |
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Problem is that the underside of the house is all buttoned up with insulation. So I’ve got to pull that all down and replace it to find any more problem spots. The split ones were easy to find because they dropped the insulation when they split. So I just had to clear out the detritus and let them have at it.
I was told the problem is that this house was built long before codes existed (around 1865). So the joists don’t go over the structure beams they just butt up against them which puts all the load on the fasteners and they inevitably split the joists after 100+ years of service.
The full fix is to have them pull up the floors, reinforce the whole house from above, redo the insulation, and put down new flooring. That's like a 20k job though. So we need to decide if we're going to live here long term before committing to that. The good thing is that we haven't had the original hard woods restored yet so it's no tears shed to have them pulled up.
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shop-teacher
> Dr_Watson
10/25/2020 at 10:28 |
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Seems like it would be a lot cheaper to pull down the insulation and add joist hangers, than to pull the floors and do it from above. Either way, it makes sense to decide if you're going to stay long term before pulling the trigger on any more structural repairs.
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Dr_Watson
> shop-teacher
10/25/2020 at 11:06 |
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Monster pain in the ass to do that much work in a 2 ft crawl space.
LastFirstMI is my name
> Dr_Watson
10/25/2020 at 11:59 |
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I grew up in a farm house built in 1903. Several of the rooms were additions, and it was always hilarious to see the random things done wrong. In one room I don’t think they even used a tape measure, the studs were randomly 12-18 inches apart.
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shop-teacher
> Dr_Watson
10/25/2020 at 12:58 |
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True.