Bought my first house in Feb. ’05…it was built in 1954.<!—-><!—-> <!—->
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Snow covered the roof so I couldn’t see anything during the inspection. Summer came and I noticed the roof sags, there’s a bow in the roof from 1 side to the other…not sure if I’m describing it right.<!—-><!—->
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The dinning room ceiling needed to be replaced as well, idiots cut the main support beam in the house. I thought this would be why the roof sagged, nothing to support it. I replaced the beam and REATTACHED the ceiling joists back to the main beam, which they forgot to do. Now my dinning room ceiling is flat.<!—-><!—->
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I was hoping that with the new support beam in place it would push the roof back to level but doesn’t look like it’s going to. Any suggestions on this? Or am I going to have to rip the entire roof off the house and rebuild?<!—-> <!—->
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Final problem,<!—-> <!—->
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Towards the bathroom the floor sags a bit…they cut a beam or two in the cellar to make room for a heat pipe. For this, can I buy a few of those metal jacks to lift this back to level? <!—-><!—->
Replies
We'd have to see a bunch of phot6os to tell what the problem is and how to attack it specificly.
Genericly thjo, it would have been necessary to jack it straight as part of inserting that beam and re-attaching things. There are a lot of possibilities here based on variables I have seen, but the fact it had been cut probably did contribute to the sagging
Most house sraightening I do needs to be from bottom up.
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Thanks for the reply...
Cant take pics of the roof by the time i get home...but I'll see about getting pics uploaded of the bathroom floor sag and the beams in the cellar that have been cut.
check the tops of the walls on the exterior (at the eaves). You may have them splayed out from all the deconstruction.
had an instance once where the installers of a Solar H2O system didn't add any supports to the rafters and caused the roof to sag and push the top pplates out about two inches front and back. Those walls were 20' long without interior walls to hold them, though.Troy Sprout
Square, Level & Plumb Renovations
What size are the rafters?What is the run of the rafter?16" or 24"O.C.
The rafters are 2x6's I believe...house isnt that wide and the they are pretty close to 16 O.C.
They've also got to be about 12' or more in length.
I know that when I laid additional insulation in the attic floor this summer, the standard length of the ins. was a couple inches shy of the joists.
I also noticed that from the ceiling joist to the roof/rafters there were only a few braces. Not sure if there used to be more or if there needs to be more. Got a few good 4x4's along the main beam to the peak of my roof...thats about the only thing that looks straight when I look at the roof from outside.
Edited 2/1/2006 8:23 pm ET by pt0872
If you want this problem fixed correctly you will need to get some more history on the house and get a good framing contractor, or if its been the way it has for a long time and the sagging doesnt bother you, you can brace things in the place they currently are. I would go with the latter because trying to straighten a house back out is going to be very expensive and could cause more problems. Diagnosing structual problems like yours require extensive knowledge of framing. I know from experience, that if u get 5 opinions every one will recomend something different, at your expense. So the solution to your problem is dont fix it, others have tried thats why some things dont make sense.