Hi All,
I posted a few months back, “House Lifting”, and received a load of responese. Thanks to all for that. I closed on the house Thursday and tore up a piece of floor to see the problem with it bouncing. No subfloor, just tongue and groove directly on the joists. Dirt underneath about 1-2 ft. below. The joists run the with of the house, 16 ft., with a beam midway holding them up. The beam is laying on the dirt, I cannot see any post and assume it rotted away. The fire place also rests on the dirt and the floor rises from the edges of the house to it, joists resting on a board attached to the fireplace below the floor. I plan to take the fireplace out and make one big room with a level floor, moving the staircase to one of the walls instead of directly in the center of the room. Any suggestions on both the leveling of the floor and the removal of the fireplace?
Thanks
Kevin
Replies
Greetings Kevin, Congrats on your purchase. Now good luck to ya. :o)
This post, in response to your question, will bump the thread through the 'recent discussion' listing again.
Perhaps it will catch someone's attention that can help you with advice.
Cheers
One word of advice, hit it hard on the big uglies of the place to get them out of the way while you've got the psyche and momentum up for it.
This is purely a case of alien identity
Edited 5/14/2005 12:09 pm ET by the razzman
Thanks for the bump and advice.
Kevin
I searched for your original post but didn't find it, so I don't know what you have in mind as to lifting the house.
From what you describe in this new thread, you will have to jack up the house eventually and place a real foundation under it. In doing that, you will inevitably level the floor to some degree as it sounds like a lot of the sag is due to an unsupported mid-span on the joists. Before you drop the house on the new foundation, you will obviously have to replace that central beam and see that it is properly supported by posts at appropriate intervals along its length. Dropping the house on this new, level support, should flatten out the floor well enough for a start.
As to the fireplace--which you can't jack up, by the way--one technique is to remove it by starting demolition in the basement. Once sufficient support has been removed from the base of the chimney, the weight of the masonry causes it to collapse down through the roof and floors into a pile of rubble...which you then have to carry out of the basement somehow. It's a fairly dramatic way to demo a chimney, all the same. I'm not sure I'd want to try this myself, but it has reportedly worked out well for some.
Otherwise, set up some staging on the roof and have at it from the top down. If the roof itself is in good shape, you'll want to protect it from errant hits by falling masonry, so lay down some OSB or plywood before you start swinging the sledgehammer. Same thing goes when you get inside to demo the first-floor section. Protect your floors if they are worth protecting.
Before you remove the chimney's foundation, you should shore up the floor joists that are hung on the ledgers attached to it; otherwise your floor will sag, perhaps catastrophically, when that support is removed. Use steel screw-jack posts and 4x4's as temporary beams. Once they are in place, you can cut the joists free from the ledgers with a sawzall and then demo the bottom of the chimney.
Sister the cut joists and extend them to span the hole you now have in your floor system. I prefer to use structural adhesive and through-bolts when doing this on floor joists. Once that's done, nail on subflooring equivalent in thickness to the subfloor you already have. You mentioned t&g directly on the joists, but you didn't say if that was finish floor or not. If not, that is the subfloor. Spruce tongue-and-groove 1x6 was standard subflooring right up through the mid to late 60s, at which point plywood more or less took over.
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
Kevin, have you demo'ed the chimney yet? If not, I just wanted to put in a couple of words of advice/caution. The "bottom-up" method, I've found, is a good way to get a lot done in a little time - but of course it should be attempted with more than a little planning and caution. The top of the chimney (above the roof) must be removed first, as far down as can be reached through the roof (use tarps or plywood to prevent dropped bricks from hitting cars, houses, dogs, etc.) . Next, remove whatever finished walls/framing that houses the fireplace until the masonry is exposed enough to attack it from a few different angles. Surround the whole area with at least 1/2" plywood to protect the floors from a whole lot of bricks (eight feet is a good radius to work with for a two story chimney). Its probably a good idea to cut the power to the house before proceeding - it's hard to say what will happen in the walls when the bricks fall. If possible, isolate the area from the rest of the house with plastic sheeting (for dust), but don't overcrowd the work space with it. Be VERY careful from this point on. No more than two people should be anywhere near the bricks at a given time, and the room should be completely empty - nothing to impede a hasty retreat. Wearing goggles, gloves and steel-toed boots (pants and shirt optional), begin "surgical" deconstruction. Attack the weak points around the fireplace, like the corners, and be ready to jump after every blow of the sledge hammer (probably the only tool you'll need, or want -keep things simple). It shouldn't take long to get things very unstable, so don't rush. Hit, inspect, LISTEN, repeat. When it goes, it should be quite dramatic. WAIT for the first rush of bricks to fall, until nothing is moving. Wait some more. At this point, there may well be large portions of the chimney still suspended in the walls above, so be extra careful while you check this out (you might even want to look from the roof). If there are, free them from a safe position above, even if you have to break an upstairs wall to gain access.
This is the way I've done it. Naturally, you should attempt this at your own risk, and use your best judgement on the particulars. Safety First!
Sounds to be worthy of a video.
"I can't say I was ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days."
Yeah, it was actually pretty cool. We had a large room w/FP in the center, so we were able to knock the bricks out from all sides. after a few minutes it looked like an apple core, and eventually the center had narrowed to just ONE brick, about chest level. Obviously this was it, so with my partner standing back I took one gentle horizontal swing -dink- have you heard of "All Hell"? Well, that's what broke loose for the next 5 - 10 seconds - it felt and sounded like the opening of a subway tunnel with a train bearing down. The sight was surreal, like a brick waterfall or a giant hourglass.
...Definitely worthy of a video, although I gotta say there's something very counterintuitive about filming myself doing demolition. I guess it's from watching so many "funny" home videos on T.V. (ever notice how many of those involve a chainsaw and a bad parking place?). I do want to reiterate, Raz (and anyone else still reading); YOU CAN BE KILLED doing this. Just treat it with the proper respect.