I live in a 1.5 story cape, my “Non gable end” walls are out of plumb and moving. In the worst spot (roughly the mid point of the walls) they are an inch and a half out on a 8′ 6″ wall. The cause is that the second floor’s floor joists do not form the bottom of the “roof’s triangle” they run perpendicular to the rafters; also the subfloor does not extend to the top plates of the exterior walls. The roof is a 12 pitch with 1x collar ties at roughly 2/3rds ht of the rafters.
Since I moved in, I have noticed growing separation cracks and evidence that this issue has been covered up over the years with compound, paint, and caulk. Most notably a crack in the ceiling directly below the second floor knee wall; telling me that the non bearing wall has begun to take on more of a load than it is supposed to.
I am looking for ideas on how best to secure the framing as is so that the problem does not get worse.
Nick
Replies
I would strongly suggest getting a structural engineer in there to assess what needs to be done.
I'm guessing cables from front to back would work, but I wouldn't hazard a guess on how many, or how thick.
Come alongs. Lots of 'em. Seriously. You need that ingineered. Cables or bar stock that is threaded on the ends going through to the outside of the wall with plates and nuts on the end.
They do it with bar stock in old buildings in earthquake areas. You can see the plates and bolts on the outside of the buildings.
>You can see the plates and bolts on the outside of the buildings.<
on a house I was thinking there might be a way to hide those in the soffits
Ussually means jacking the ridge a little too.
yes...jack the ridge and cable in the wallsMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
as is is probably not going to work..
the best level of purchase is going to be at the plate line
and jacking the ridge over a bearing wall with some reinforcement of the point load to the basement
i bet you have to either :
pull up some subfloor so you can cable thru those joists from front to back
or
pull down some ceiling..
since your joists run the opposite of the rafters... and you live in Mass.. i bet your ceiling is furred
you could run cables thru the furring space.. which will put you in the right verticle plane to go tru the top plate
Thanks All,
That was what I was afraid I would have to do to correct the problem. Long story short it is a tough sell to the lady of the house especially due to some of they many other surprises the house has sprung on us. . . . So part of the question is: would I be okay with an out of plumb wall that was at least secured in its position? Or am I in homeowner denial and I need to come to terms with the house that my house is messed and I need to fix it ASAP?
Nick
maybe all it would take is 2 ceiling channels.... at the 1/3 points .... maybe
i would envision some aircraft cable... or a rigger ( sailboat )
two eyes and say a good 1/2" threaded eye bolt on each end
with a steel plate to spread the load
once the cable was installed with the threaded rod drilled thru the top plate of the wall
and the steel plate installed ( this would all take place in the soffit area ) with bearing washers
you could double nut the threaded rod and take all the slack out
once the cable is under tension you could patch your ceiling...
now it won't continue to get worse.... if you jack the ridge and take up on the nuts you may recapture some of the spread...
1/2 " eye bolts with a fine thread and good lubrication, gives a lot of compression power to try and squeeze those walls back to straight & plumb
it may be done with some shade tree engineering... or consult a good Structural PE
some caveats :
as the house spread.. things fall into and move into the resulting gaps... if you can't clean out those gaps.. you can't restore the original shape
strength of materials... the force of the ridge / roof settling and pushing the walls out.......
was pretty uniform....
the force of two cable points is not uniform... the more cable location points and the more the steel plates distribute the force.. the more uniform your restoration will be
you could wind up just deforming the wall at the cable locations instead of uniformly pulling the wall back into straight and plumbMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Nick,
The "Non gable end" sounds to me from your description to be a hip. Ridges don't normally drop, they sag in the middles because walls that run parallel with them bow at their centers, well in older homes anyway.
The hipped ends of hipped roofs don't usually bow out unless they are super long because the hip rafters "pin" the corners of the walls in combination with the wall framing from moving out. This in turn keeps the ends of the ridge "up". From what you describe, it sounds like the whole ridge is moving towards the hipped end. This could be caused by the wind force on the gable end or the back wall of the house is moving slightly down continuously over time.
I second the idea of getting a PE to look at it.
http://www.constructionfourmsonline.com
Joe, he has a 1.5 story Cape, which almost always has a gable roof. I think what he meant by "non-gable end" is the eave wall.
Thanks,
Yup it is a gable roof, and it's the eves wall. I don't know how much the ridge would have to sag to correspond to an inch and a half out but it is pretty straight looking. And I was able to sight down the bottom edges of it, up in the attic crawlspace area.
With a 12 pitch, an inch and a half down equals an inch and a half out, so if each side is that far out the ridge in theory should have dropped 3". Houses don't always follow the rules of physics though so your mileage may vary.
Mike & Nick,Thanks for the clarification, I made my comments base on Nick's description of "they run (the joists) perpendicular to the rafters; also the subfloor does not extend to the top plates of the exterior walls."Joists usually run perpendicular to rafters in hips across the building width.I can only gather that the joists in Nick's house run through it's length and not across it's width.http://www.josephfusco.org
http://www.constructionfourmsonline.com
Kind of odd that the floor joists run the wrong way!
I have used heavy duty tie downs to pull in the walls before putting a ridge beam under the original ridge.
Engineer liked my 2x8 wind braces under every rafter set nailed on both sides and then my ridge beam system.
I had to cut a hole in the gable face to slide in the ridge beam.I set up a tracked floor run to run a dolly on.Then lifted the beams one at a time on a scissor lift set them on the dolly and could roll them one handed into the attic.
ANDYSZ2WHY DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT BEING A SOLE PROPRIETOR IS A REAL JOB?
REMODELER/PUNCHOUT SPECIALIST