10 February 2018
Tangent #6 - Secure the dip.
The dip in the roof over the dining room was causing me a little concern. A lot of our wire runs will be going through that attic space so I want to be sure it's going to support my weight when I'm working up there. I also wanted to understand why it's there and make sure it doesn't get any worse. You can see the dip in this photo from late 2016.
It turns out that when they moved the short wall with the 2 windows outward about 3 feet, they did try to reinforce the structure of the now unsupported short wall above it with a couple of diagonal braces. They also nailed in some vertical ties to help hold up the ends of the ceiling joists which now had no support underneath them. Although not ideal, it was better than nothing.
Later, someone decided to put a wood stove in the dining room and vent it through the ceiling and out the roof. They chose to put it directly under where the north wall used to be.
In order to make room for the metal chimney, they cut through one of the diagonal supports! That left only the wood siding and and a 2x4 nailer at the top edge of the porch roof for the horizontal structure under this section of roof.
First order of business was to support the ceiling/wall assembly from below. Amy and I put up this brace, locating it directly underneath the bottoms of the wall studs and the ends of the original ceiling joists. You can see how much the ceiling was sagging down. We continued to jack it up until the gaps at the ends were gone.
Once the area was supported, I removed what was left of the diagonal bracing, and the vertical ceiling joist support ties. Then I fabricated a new three piece truss in the attic. I was able to set one end over the beam in the new wall we put up between the living room and dining room, and the other end over the original existing wall next to the north facing kitchen door. Then I screwed the truss to each of the short wall studs using 5" ledgerloc screws. To hold up the ceiling joists, I reinstalled the vertical joist support ties, attaching them at both ends with carriage bolts, and added some blocking at the bottom of each stud.
While doing this repair work, I noticed three other vertical boards located near the center of three other seemingly random ceiling joists. They were nailed to the ceiling joist at the bottom and a rafter tie at the top. What's a rafter tie you ask? Click here for the answer. Why is there a 40" gap between the ceiling joists and the rafter ties you ask? I have no idea.
I took my hammer and removed the first board. Fairly soon I noticed that there was a lot more bounce when I stepped on that ceiling joists. I dug down in to the insulation where the vertical tie had been and found this.
A lesson I keep forgetting is that when you find something done in house construction that seems odd or out of place, it was always done for a reason. It's best to figure out that reason before you undo the work.
I fixed these by jacking up the ceiling joist from below to close the split and then sandwiched the joist between two 3' long strips of plywood glued and screwed in place.
Around this time we got a little snow. Everything appears to have held up fine. You can see that most of the sag in the roof is gone.
Tangent #7 - We need our doors back.
When we pulled all the bead board off of the walls in the kitchen and dining room, we had to remove all the trim as well. Since all of our doors were attached to the casing (trim) around the doors, they also had to be removed. We have been using plywood to cover the door openings, but now those 4x8 sheets will be in the way of some of the electrical rough in we need to do. So I reinstalled three doors using temporary blocking to have a place to attach the hinges and door strikes. The dining room and north side kitchen got their original doors back.
The south facing kitchen door got a replacement that we purchased from an architectural salvage place in Tyron, NC. It's wider than the door that was there before so we plan on cutting back the siding in order to keep the 5" casing width used everywhere on the house.
Tangent #JK - We're ready to do electrical work!
Except for one more small thing (several small things actually). Our crawl space is still just a dirt floor and is open to the world. That world includes a cat, or two, who have found that the crawl space makes a lovely litter box.
Pooper scooping our crawl space will be on ongoing effort until we get it sealed up. "Sigh".
Tangent #6 - Secure the dip.
The dip in the roof over the dining room was causing me a little concern. A lot of our wire runs will be going through that attic space so I want to be sure it's going to support my weight when I'm working up there. I also wanted to understand why it's there and make sure it doesn't get any worse. You can see the dip in this photo from late 2016.
It turns out that when they moved the short wall with the 2 windows outward about 3 feet, they did try to reinforce the structure of the now unsupported short wall above it with a couple of diagonal braces. They also nailed in some vertical ties to help hold up the ends of the ceiling joists which now had no support underneath them. Although not ideal, it was better than nothing.
Later, someone decided to put a wood stove in the dining room and vent it through the ceiling and out the roof. They chose to put it directly under where the north wall used to be.
In order to make room for the metal chimney, they cut through one of the diagonal supports! That left only the wood siding and and a 2x4 nailer at the top edge of the porch roof for the horizontal structure under this section of roof.
First order of business was to support the ceiling/wall assembly from below. Amy and I put up this brace, locating it directly underneath the bottoms of the wall studs and the ends of the original ceiling joists. You can see how much the ceiling was sagging down. We continued to jack it up until the gaps at the ends were gone.
Once the area was supported, I removed what was left of the diagonal bracing, and the vertical ceiling joist support ties. Then I fabricated a new three piece truss in the attic. I was able to set one end over the beam in the new wall we put up between the living room and dining room, and the other end over the original existing wall next to the north facing kitchen door. Then I screwed the truss to each of the short wall studs using 5" ledgerloc screws. To hold up the ceiling joists, I reinstalled the vertical joist support ties, attaching them at both ends with carriage bolts, and added some blocking at the bottom of each stud.
While doing this repair work, I noticed three other vertical boards located near the center of three other seemingly random ceiling joists. They were nailed to the ceiling joist at the bottom and a rafter tie at the top. What's a rafter tie you ask? Click here for the answer. Why is there a 40" gap between the ceiling joists and the rafter ties you ask? I have no idea.
I took my hammer and removed the first board. Fairly soon I noticed that there was a lot more bounce when I stepped on that ceiling joists. I dug down in to the insulation where the vertical tie had been and found this.
A lesson I keep forgetting is that when you find something done in house construction that seems odd or out of place, it was always done for a reason. It's best to figure out that reason before you undo the work.
I fixed these by jacking up the ceiling joist from below to close the split and then sandwiched the joist between two 3' long strips of plywood glued and screwed in place.
Around this time we got a little snow. Everything appears to have held up fine. You can see that most of the sag in the roof is gone.
Tangent #7 - We need our doors back.
When we pulled all the bead board off of the walls in the kitchen and dining room, we had to remove all the trim as well. Since all of our doors were attached to the casing (trim) around the doors, they also had to be removed. We have been using plywood to cover the door openings, but now those 4x8 sheets will be in the way of some of the electrical rough in we need to do. So I reinstalled three doors using temporary blocking to have a place to attach the hinges and door strikes. The dining room and north side kitchen got their original doors back.
The south facing kitchen door got a replacement that we purchased from an architectural salvage place in Tyron, NC. It's wider than the door that was there before so we plan on cutting back the siding in order to keep the 5" casing width used everywhere on the house.
Tangent #JK - We're ready to do electrical work!
Except for one more small thing (several small things actually). Our crawl space is still just a dirt floor and is open to the world. That world includes a cat, or two, who have found that the crawl space makes a lovely litter box.
Pooper scooping our crawl space will be on ongoing effort until we get it sealed up. "Sigh".
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