Looking for some advice on how to go about something...

I've got some rotten floor joists!!! Fml.

I'm in the process of re-siding the two sides of my house that we didn't get to last summer. Over the past couple days I stripped the two walls down to the studs in preparation for new sheathing, tyvek, and hardi board siding like we did on the other half of the house last summer.

Why did I strip it down to the studs you ask? Well, there was two layers of siding. The top layer was that ugly, wavy, cement shingle crap that you see on a lot of old houses in Seattle. The bottom layer was super old shiplap siding that's probably from 1941 when the house was built. there was no plywood sheathing under that and not even any insulation.

The issue I'm having is, on the north side of my house the floor joists are rotten pretty bad at the ends. A few of the joists are so bad off that they aren't even in contact with the sill plate anymore. Thankfully the sill plate is pressure treated and seems ok. The foundation is new to the house within the last 10 or 12 years. The rim Joists are also all but gone on that side.

So, I'm gonna need to jack the house up and replace the floor joists and the rim joists. At the very least I'll at least just cut away the rot on the existing joists and sister new joists on depending on extent of rot.

Question is, how would you jack the wall up for repair? One idea I have is to lag bolt a beam horizontally to the wall studs, since they're exposed. From there I could use 2 or 3 heavy duty bottle jacks and 4x4's to support the load for a day or so while repairs are made. This would be nice because my crawl space is tight so being able to lift the wall from the outside would be killer.

FYI, the house in question is your typical north Seattle rambler built in the 40's. no 2nd floor to worry about.

Thanks for any help!!! I need this project done by the 1st of September so I can hunt.

I think your question should be are there any civil/structural engineers out there? I would recommend against jacking up a house without consulting an engineer.

[img]http://homerenovations.about.com/od/houseexteriorframework/a/homejack.htm[/img]

how many rotted joists?

Probably 10 or so with the ends rotten.

Get an engineer involved to design the fix. It will save you headache down the road and will provide any future buyers with the knowledge that the work is done right.

Structural work is not to be cowboyed..

I'm having my home insurance come take a look first. Hopefully they'll help me out a bit. As far as the work to be done, I got a hold of a contractor buddy so I'm not going at it by the seat of my pants on this one. I'd still like to hear thoughts on supporting the wall for repairs.

Here's my plan:

Block in some 2x6 pieces between the wall studs. Then lag bolt a 4x4 beam to the 2x6 blockings. I would apply pressure against that, via heavy duty bottle jacks while repair work is completed.

Get in the crawlspace and shore up the floor system. Do as you plan for the wall but don't "jack it up" "shore it up". If you don't want to remove the rotten joists at least coat them with a rot stopping product.

I don't think the shiplap was a layer of siding, I think it was the original sheathing and could very well have been left alone.

I'm an engineer and sistering the joists is the right answer. I also remodeled a 100 year old house from stem to stern, and that is where I really learned about this stuff.

One thing to note is the ship-lap was the sheeting.

I'm not sure about your jacking technique though. When you pick up the wall, with the floor go with it, or will the wall just pull away from the floor? Is the existing floor deck sagging over the rotted area or is it flat still?

I know the crawl space is a bitch on these old houses (trust me I really know), but couldn't you just angle the sister joist in there then smack it into place with a heavy hammer? You could use your bottle jacks to spot jack the flooring on either side of the joist to provide relief to get the joist in there. Just put a 4' chunk of 4x4 on the end of the jack and give yourself that 1/4" of space you need to get the joist sistered up. Hopefully by the time you get all 10 joists done, you will have raised the plate at the exterior wall enough to get the rim in.

If you do try and jack from the outside, do it slowly. Even then there is a really good chance you will f-up the interior finishes. I figure to jack the exterior wall enough to get clearance at the next girder line you will have to move the wall up quite a bit.

It will be more dirty-sh!tty work, but I think the single joist method would be what I would try.

Posted at same time as Bucket. Same answer essentially.

cool. Thanks for the info Bucket and Rocket Red. You're probably correct that the shiplap was the original sheathing. One of the reasons I wanted it all off was because of all the rot we found last year on the other side of the house when we re-sided that. I knew I'd be running into more. Also the house was not insulated when we moved in. So, last year during the re-side project we threw in some R12 or whatever before putting up new sheathing and Tyvek. I figured I'd do the same on the rest of the house. I'm gonna get under the house today hopefully and take some pics of those floor joists. I'll post what I find.

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Well, he is 2 weeks into his 5 month salmon binge so he might not be around?


















Or he is sleeping.

Like Bucket and Rocket, shore it up. I did this on one of my old houses. I'm not sure about supporting it from the wall studs. I put jacks on blocks under the joists and lifted the corner of my house about 1/4" to give space to remove all the rotten material and replace with new. While I was at it, I added another 6" course to the foundation because earth contact was the main cause of the rot to begin with.

Sg