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My house is 80 years old and the joists in the living room and dining room are almost gone from rot due to very poor ventilation in the crawl. We have cut a trap door in the living room floor to gain access but there is precious little space and it diminishes to nonexistence the further you get from the trap door. One suggestion we have received was to fill up the space between the joist with rock and then pour in concrete. Does this sound feasible? Any help would be most appreciated.
*Doubt it....I can think of more problems than I could list.Had a neighbor that build a house on crawl space with poor ventilation and his rotted out in 5 years.And you'll probably have to bite the same bullet, rip out all the floors, replace joist and get better ventilation.
*Dear Charles,It's important to remember that a moisture problem ruined your floor. If you try to dilute the symptoms with ventilation, there will be other problems.You can stabilize your house by installing a ground cover. I like Tu-Tuf and get it from efi.org.Don't complain about tight conditions. Spread out whatever you can by hand. Use clever tactics like bribing slender friends and pushing with sticks to reach farther. If you can't get a seal on the laps, don't fret. When you can get 90% of the dirt covered, you'll have a 90% solution to your moisture problem. Regards, Fred
*Fredi Spread out whatever you can by hand. Use clever tactics like bribing slender friends and pushing with sticks to reach farther. Is that pushing with sticks for slender friends that bribes don't work on.
*Fred,How will spreading a moisture bar help fix rotten joists. Sure that should've been done in the beginning but mow that it's too late he needs to replace the joists. When he opensthings upenough to do that, he won't need skinny friends. Rich ones maybe but not skinny ones.The stick is to measure how deep it's gonna pile up here now... better get your barn boots on.
*It sounds like you have to replace the bottom 12" of your house. Not exactly the easiest 12". Concrete would work but you will have to do it all at once and it won't be cheap. You will still need a finish floor. You can replace the sills and the floor in sections and you can put in a vapor barrier when you have the floor out. If you do this you should monitor the moisture in that space. You may need to put in a dehumidifier as well. We have done this in some historic buildings.If you are doing this yourself, I would recommend the wood route. If you are paying a contractor, I would listen to him. He will get it done quickly.
*Most codes require a minimum of 18" from the dirt to the joists, and even that is a damned inconvenient place to have to try to do any work. There's no cheap or easy fix here. You could lift the whole place and build a proper foundation and ground floor over a crawl space, or you might be able to save your perimeter footing and convert to a slab on grade. Both are very major work, and the decision can only be made by somebody who knows what they're doing looking at the actual house. -- J.S.
*You all will have to excuse me. I am new to this kind of thing and could not find any responses and I sent the same message out. Actually this is not Charlie, this is Mary Ellen. I hate computers and am trying to learn my way around this one. On top of the floor joists problem, I have just learned that the kitchen addition which was put on in the 70's has a wood foundation that is covered with tar. Can you say money pit? Is the consensus here to jack up the house? Every room in this house is on a different level. It's two steps down from the kitchen to the dining room, one step down to the living room, one step down to the bathroom. Can you jack up a 2 story house that is multi-leveled? Does anyone have a Prozac? I am getting very discouraged here. Thanks for the help so far, I really appreciate it.
*Mary,Before you get discouraged, take a deep breath. Not as bad as you may think.Okay, now, I know that you hate computers but it would really help if you had a digital camera or have a friend who has one. You have to take a few shots of the various problem areas so that I can help you.The part about the house being on different levels is not as bad as it sounds. It's fairly easy to jack layered houses, but it's also probably not required in order to fix things and save your investment.You may want to segment your "moneypit" into manageable slices. So, how about it? Got a camera?
*Sounds like you have an interesting job, to say the least. My suggestion would be to locate a contractor who would coordinate with a house mover to raise your house, if raising it is what you want to do. Most contractors can build from the ground up but getting your whole house up to the level you want the contractor to build to is a job for a specialist.You can decide during the planning stage if you want to piece work the necessary repairs to the framing, such as all those rotten joists and a bunch of less obvious structural work, too, I'll bet, while your house is still on the ground, or get it up in the air and be able to work from below.I don't know if the pucker factor would allow me to work under a raised structure with rotten underpinnings.
*Thanks LFred, I do indeed have a friend with a camera. It will take me a few days,some fast talking and a bit of bribery. The living room is about 15 by 30. Before I bought this house my real estate agent had this little guy squeeze through the one little vent and he thought he only saw a couple of bad joists and that he could fix those which is why I went ahead and bought the place. After putting in the trap door in we became aware the problem was worse but alas the contracts were signed boo hoo whine whine. Thank you for your support. Hope to have pictures soon.
*Ralph, The key would be to find a reliable contractor. I have been burned on more than one occasion ( the fellow that replaced the rotted joists that could be gotten to did not use all treated wood I found out later. One of my co workers is going through a big law suit with her contractor who came recommended by a friend. I can't afford too much trial and error. Thank you, Mary E
*Mary- If you have a foundation that goes down into the grade say three feet or so- you have to dig a spot to see, around here the preferred method is a vacuum truck. That's right. They go in and suck the dirt out and pretty fast too. Then you can play around with sistering joists and all of the other fun stuff you can come up with. We have lifted houses and dug down for full cellars, moved houses from piers to full cellars, repaired in sections, done it from the inside by tearing the floor out to the joists too. The last is the cheapest in the long run if you do the math. A couple of guys can cut a few hundred sq. feet out a day. Dump fees, clean up and re-box the sill on the inside of the existing rim joist and new floor framing at ground level over a rat slab is simple. Good luck. Cal
*PS Is the pucker factor what I think it is?
*Cal, Are you in the KY area? What are sistering joists? This house is perched on the palisades of a cliff. There is little dirt to be had here. We do grow a lot of prickly pears and cedar.
*Sounds like a good chance to build that basement that you have always wanted... If you have to dig down several feet for a crawl space, excavating for a full basement might not be that much more. Of course, there is always the cost of the concrete.Raising houses seems to be fairly common in Berkeley. They unhook all the plumbing, jack up the house, install cribbing as they go along, connect the plumbing back up, and enclose the space that they have raised. It must be cheaper than building up as I have seen more raised than I have with second stories added on. This isn't in Berkeley, but it does give some visuals of the process:http://www.jennanconstruction.com/raise.html
*No MA area. Footings here are min. 40" into the grade with frost and all. I thought you had a crawl space cellar. Sistering joists refers to nailing one next to the other as in contiguous.
*Dear Piffin,Boots. Yes.I only suggested stabilizing the structure. We'll get more info and maybe see how the fixes can happen. But I hate to see a big chunk of old house trashed when a few tricks can save it.Cordially, Fred
*Dear Bill,Now you've got me confused reading my own words. Don't do that.Yours, Fred
*> around here the preferred method is a vacuum truckWhere's that? I've been looking for a vacuum truck service here in Los Angeles, but there aren't any.-- J.S.
*Cal, you can not even slither in my crawl space. This house was built on solid KY limestone. The joists more or less sit on this limestone. So, Casey I would have to blast my way to a basement. Also Cal I read in Fine Homebuilding (I believe it was)that you have to remove rotted joists or they affect the new wood causing it to rot quickly, but maybe that is when you scab on rather than sister. I have just about decided to yank up the lovely oak floor in the living room, boo hoo again, this will also perhaps give me some access to the dining room. It appears to have the original pine floors. My dad said he hoped that this would not affect the walls. Not only is every room in this house on a differant level, they all have pretty much differant woods. I fell in love with this house because it was quirky but it is also what is making me nuts. Thanks for the advice and allowing me this time to whine about my plight.
*Hey, blasting isn't the only alternative. I spent a summer digging foundations through basalt rock with nothing more than a sledge hammer and pick. Does great things for upper body conditioning. Old "Hard Rock John", the guy I worked with, could really go through that stuff, I had a lot more enthusiasm but not as much technique...
*Charles --When we cut over to the new site, perhaps I'll post my pictures on taking up T&G oak flooring. It can be done with minimal damage if you don't mind spending some time on it. But it's strictly a labor of love thing, not something you could afford to pay somebody to do.-- J.S.
*Amen to that!