I have what I believe to be a post and beam camp. It was a school house in late 1800’s. All of the log trusses/sills? holding up the floor are rotten.
Is it possible for me to tear out the floor and replace all of these logs without the house falling on me?
It is 18×28 all one room mostly with a bathroom.
It is standing on log sills (which are laying on a frost type wall with crawl space) which don’t seem too bad but haven’t checked them all.
So I was thinking that all the downward force should be on the whole outer rim and not really have anything to do with the floor.
Is this at least half correct.?If so I would like to start gutting it this summer.
Thanks for any and all input.
Alan
Replies
Kind of right
You may be right that the floor beams are just that and, only support the floor. But on an older sturcture, they could also be tied into the rotten sill, and be the stronger thing that holds stuff up.
I'd start by removing sections of the floor, instead of just ripping things out. And have a look at things as I got them out where they are more visible.
Thank you that is what I hope to do. I am not just taking a powersaw to the whole thing. I was going to do all he work underneath but I am fairly disabled and it would be extremely hard to get around in tight space with heavy lumber.I think by doing it from above would be much easier if not simpler.Maybe need to find a way to tie walls togethr from the top in case of the sills being held by logs.I think that if that was the case it may have fallen by now.
Thanks