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Hello goons, and welcome to the personal hell that is my house! Another appropriate thread title could be, "How I learned that water is the enemy of the homestead." I bought my house about 3.5 years ago just before starting medical school. I figured that I was going to be paying about $50k in rent, so why not put it towards a mortgage instead? Houses are relatively cheap here in Oklahoma, and I finally found and settled on my current home after sorting through a lot of crap in the area.  From the street. 1100 sq feet of fun Like so many others in this area of town, my house had just been flipped before I bought it. "Torn down to the studs," I was told, and then rebuilt with change in layout including some brick veneer repair, a new attached deck, new central heat and air, new shingles, new wiring, plumbing, drywall and trim, floors were refinished, new bathroom, new kitchen with granite countertops and customized cabinets... There was also a non-attached garage that had a noticeable lean that came as-is. I was very happy with the way the place looked and the inspection of the house found no major issues, and estimated that the garage could be fixed for $500.  The lean visible from the front I never got around to dealing with the garage and spent the past few years just fixing minor things as they occurred - put a new clamp on a hose under the kitchen sink, caulked windows, made doors fit better. The biggest thing I've done was replace a french door that came with the house - it was wood that I'm pretty sure was painted with interior black paint, and the paint began to disintegrate and the wood crack. The door was never installed correctly the begin with and would stick in the jamb, so I replaced it last summer and haven't had any problems since. The past year was extremely busy and I had little free time because of school, so some minor projects I had were pushed off until this year. The fourth year of medical school is much more relaxed and you have a lot more free time, so I decided to get started on some of the projects I wanted to do at this time. This is when my current issues beta. First, I wanted to make my deck look nicer, mostly inspired by the multitude of deck restos done on reddit this summer. Baulsters were crooked or coming out, railings were warping, deck boarding was ugly and begin to have issues with rot due to poor use of nails, and the staircase was falling apart. I started to pull the worst deck boards, and since I had been reading about deck code I began to notice things were amiss. "No big deal, this shouldn't be too much to handle." I also had my furnace serviced last week and while in the attic, I saw that one of my rafters was cracked, again thinking that I would just sister it up and call it good. I was out caulking windows the other day and noticed that there were some new cracks in the mortar. I pressed on the brick with my foot and the bricks moved; pressing harder caused the bricks to crack at the mortar and buckle together. "Oh gently caress," I thought. At this point I decided to hire a structural engineer to come and look at the house to make sure I wasn't about to be killed in an unfortunate home collapse, given that we now have hundreds of earthquakes per year. Fred the engineer came out the other day and I showed him what I was concerned with. He also noticed a few other issues, namely that my roof rafters are separating from the ridge beam, there are some improperly braced butt joints, and some supports are warped or absent. As far as my foundation, he thinks that I need to add more girders and more shims under the current brick posts. He thought that the brick wall would benefit from being rebuilt, but that it could also be repaired. So that leaves me here at the current. I've got a bit of free time the next few weeks, and then residency interviews begin and I'll be spending all sorts of money flying all over the country to enter myself into indentured servitude for the next several years. Depending on where I end up, I'm going to either try and sell the house or rent it out, probably to med students as they tend to be less scummy that the average Oklahoman. There are so many projects here that I wanted to make this thread to keep track of what I need to do, and hopefully to track my progress. Goon input is also appreciated, as you all seem to have very solid advice - what I need lots of. I'm going to try and DIY as much of this as possible, but am definitely getting professional help as needed. If you think I am doing something incorrectly or am in over my head, please tell me! THE (BRICK) WALL  Winter is coming This is the eastern wall, the one that's falling apart before my eyes. You can see from the pic that there's been significant work done on it, including bricking over where there used to be a door and over an old window. Lots of pointing repairs, too. You may notice something odd about the crawlspace vent on the left - more on that later.  Here's the long view of the wall. Hard to tell here but there are areas of significant lean, especially some of the soldiers.  Here's the north-eastern wall - the image above is taken just to the left of here. Issues here include the large span or mortar, and the cracks in the mortar. This is from the house settling, probably accelerated by water getting to the soil under the house from poor drainage handling. There's also loss of mortar in the bricks under the window sill. The large crack in the concrete corresponds with the soil shifts that are affecting the house. Another issues with this part is that there is poor girder support under the house, as I discovered while in the crawl space the other day. I'll get some pics next time I'm down there.  This is the window that was removed and bricked over. Just to show the quality of masonry.  Close up of what inspired me to call an engineer. You can see the bricks pushed in where I had my foot. Very reassuring. Also shows the issues with the soldiers and lean, more, too. The general dirtiness of the brick is also apparent.
THE GARAGE  C'mon baby, show me how you lean The degree of swag in this building should be apparent now. Yes, the picture is level. I know, I know... it's quite impressive. The inside is even more awesome. We can talk about this extra slab later.  View from the side. There was a tree adjacent to the garage that was removed, it has damaged the roof, but not too serious. You can also see the sag in the roof line, the reason for which will become apparent soon.  Here's the view looking in. I just rearranged all that poo poo to get better access to the rear, where most of the pathology is. You can see the incredible attempts at repair performed by the previous homeowners, including improperly attached collar ties, poorly attached roof joists, and some OSB that isn't actually attached to anything to provide shear bracing. Yes, that garage door motor works, but I'm afraid to use it. I tried to get some pics of it without avail, but looking behind the OSB reveals that there is NO sill plate on the back of the garage, perhaps explaining why the studs are leaning... The OSB was sloppily nailed to the stubs, but missed a few studs and doesn't actually connect to the studs in the corner. I believe this is doing very little to help the structure. Initially, my plan to correct this was to follow the same idea as what this guy did: http://www.hammerzone.com/archives/framecarp/liftmove/straighten/garage1/winch.htm I was going to remove the vinyl siding, attach bracing at the edges, drive lags into the studs through the bracing, and then try to rack the structure straight with a come-along. When straightened, I was going to slide in a sill plate, anchor it with wedge anchors, and then add some new studs to support the wall. I was considering removing the old wood siding and adding OSB for proper shear strength, too. What has hindered my plan was the issue with the roof that I just noticed today.  Here we can see just under the sag visible from outside. What's happening here is that the 2x4 ridge board is actually 2 pieces, butt-jointed together with the rafters nailed over the joint. The joint is separating in all directions, and there are also rafters separating from the ridge along the roof line. BONUS - you can see that the collar ties are coated with concrete, meaning that these used to be part of a concrete form. Recycling! My current plan is as follows for this
Does anyone see anything glaringly wrong with this plan?  This is a view of the front-right wall. The sill plate is completely rotted through and the studs are cracked. This should be the easiest part of the garage to fix - new sill plate, anchors, secure studs to sill. THE DECK  YOU SON OF A BITCH So, this was built at some point in 2011 before I bought the house. After seeing all the code violations, I was curious and checked with my permit office and - big surprise - they have no record of permits being obtained for this structure. I've got an illegal deck! Thanks so much for this lovely gift, home builder! I've posted some of these in the crappy construction tales thread, but here's some better images.  The stairs... stringers are on dirt, railings were not secured to posts properly, no proper handrail, steps are loose and there's too large of a gap through the steps... Oh, and the railing was able to come down with a few hammer swings. Going to rip all this out, pour a small slab with footers, build new stringers and steps, construct a better railing that's actually safe and usable.   Improper girder span joints. Girder joints should occur with vertical support underneath. They didn't even make an attempt to nail, bolt, or screw the girders together to take up the load, either. Not sure what I'm going to do quite yet. I think I may get some deck block and PT 4x4 or 6x6 and place vertical support underneath. I guess I could pour footers, too, since I'm going to have the deck apart and will need concrete for other stuff.  The ledger board. Well, it's lag screwed through the brick veneer and does attach to another 2x6 on the inside of the veneer, but the inside board isn't attached to the house structure (e.g.. joists). Regardless, the screw pattern is insufficient. I am considering converting to a free-standing structure to avoid pulling the brick of my house down in a deck collapse. I'm glad my mind goes to these places. THE CRAWLSPACE AND HOUSE SUPPORTS  Good lord, I'll get into this later. What a mess - but also some cool stuff in that place. BEDROOM FRENCH DOOR  No loving comment on this. I'm so pissed at the quality of door installed here, and the poor craftsmanship of installation. It's so frustrating not being able to use your door because the wood has swollen from rain/humidity and is stuck against the frame, requiring a mallet to open or close the door. Whatever. I'll get a new door, studs, shims, silicone for the threshold seal (hoping the threshold doesn't need to be replaced...), new exterior trim, low-expansion foam, and get that poo poo hung up. THE PORCH   The old iron railing is ugly, not secured well to the house or concrete. I'm planning on replacing, most likely with aluminum railing. Maybe composite, I'm not sure yet. This is lower on the list of stuff. The brickwork also is in need of help, to say the least. GUTTERS  This is the northeast corner with the porch just out of frame to the left. I currently have 1 gutter running over the porch. It's dented and spills water everywhere. I used to have another gutter on the corner of the house pictured, but it fell off. I'm having 2 seamless gutter companies give quotes this week. If it's crazy $$$ (I'm hoping not), I may consider DIY, though I think gutters and controlling water around the house is a big priority. THE ROOF AND ATTIC No pics right now, but coming soon! So that's kind of the big picture of what's going on now. I'm ready to get started on this ridiculous amount of poo poo I have created for myself...
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Oct 16, 2014 03:32
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Just when you thought it was over, a bonus post! I picked up a temporary crawlspace vent replacement at Big Orange Box Store today and got to installing it this afternoon. Here's what left of the old vent after a good kick and yank  If you remember from the OP, I mentioned the vent... when I was removing the old mortar that was around the vent, one of the newer bricks literally fell out from the vibration.  The mortar on the brick had no structure and was like loose sand. I imagine all the other bricks laid by whoever did this job is going to be similar quality of poo poo. I actually can use that brick to look for matching bricks, and suffice to say I now have a structural crawlspace vent.
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Oct 16, 2014 03:37
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Unless there are permitting/setback issues that garage is a tear-down. Maybe you'll be able to save some materials, but that's about it.
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Oct 16, 2014 17:09
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You think so? There are a lot of garage restorations online that were in way worse condition than mine... What in particular makes you think demo? Regardless, if it needs so go, then so be it.
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Oct 16, 2014 17:55
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Even if you were to winch the garage straight and brace it, every nailed joint has flexed. Nail two pieces of wood and bend them to see what that looks like. If you are just using it for storage, and you aren't in an area where a storm is going to cause a big tree to come down on it, I'd wait until the house stuff is handled. it's a problem but its not a "gonna fall down tomorrow and kill you" problem. is the brick on your house a veneer or structural? The patches where doors used to be are amazing... looks like a trade school practice run. Edit: you might be better off tax-wise converting the deck to freestanding. Since no permits were pulled, it's not been assessed. Where I am at least a freestanding deck is not considered a permanent structure and does not raise property taxes. From the pics it looks like you could sink some concrete and put footers at the end of the beams against the house pretty easily. Dirty Beluga fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 21:55
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Yes, garage is storage only at this point. I don't keep anything of value in there because of fear of it coming down. Brick is veneer, sorry for not mentioning that. I've got a mason coming to look at the brick tomorrow. Had gutter guy out today and got a quote, have another coming tomorrow. Looking to be about $500 for the entire house. I was thinking a free-standing deck is the way to go. Pull the boards, get access to build footings, pour footings, and then place 6x6 posts with girders. Pulled some siding on the shed today to get a better look.  You can see the darker siding board at the bottom that's attached with the same general outdoor screw as used all over the deck. This tells me that the house flipper knew about these issues, had them exposed, and didn't do anything about it. It also looks like the stud bottoms were sawed off. The entire rear wall moves easily. Laminator fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 22:38
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jesus
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Oct 17, 2014 00:46
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Laminator posted:You think so? There are a lot of garage restorations online that were in way worse condition than mine... What in particular makes you think demo? Yes, I think so. Just because other people make bad decisions about restoring simple structures that are best demoed and rebuilt doesn't make it a good idea. It's a small garage. It can be framed in a couple of days and finished the following weekend and be 100% correct. As opposed to dicking around with trying to find and fix everything wrong with that......even if you rack it back, it's still not gonna be right by a long shot. It's a whole lot easier to make it right without siding and a roof on it. If you're going that far it makes no sense not to start over. Especially when the thing is missing simple poo poo like sill plates. People try to "save" things like this because they are afraid of building something from scratch. Don't be. It's not hard.
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Oct 17, 2014 16:32
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Point well taken. After bracing the insides today I would feel much more comfortable starting with a more modern structure that's actually built decently well. Braced the garage, including a new rafter tie, vertical bracing for the roof, and some bracing for the wall. I feel better knowing that there's something supporting the structure now.  Also got some of the crawlspace cleaned out so I can actually move around down there. Pulled out like 20 feet of left over PVC, about 30 feet of furnace ducting, several feet if lead pipe, and lots of old copper wiring. There's also an old gad furnace with old steel gas lines - I picked up a reciprocating saw and will get that cut out. Under the bathroom, there was a ton of broken glass and tile, and this...  Given the state of overall health here, that syringe was probably used for injecting some insulin, and then some meth. Maybe the underwear was a tourniquet? Also  Got another gutter quote, talked with my neighbor about drainage, and waited for the mason who never showed. Hopefully gutters next week and some other masons that may actually show up. Deck demo continues and more crawlspace cleaning and assessment tomorrow.
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Oct 18, 2014 02:26
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I actually like the old iron railing, I think it matches the character of the house. Of course, my grandparents' house has the same railing, so perhaps it is merely nostalgia. The masonry is pretty sad. I hope you can get a mason to repair it.
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Oct 18, 2014 04:23
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Haha, this looks familiar. Our 1920s balloon-construction house w/ brick exterior has some bulging/lean going on, but the structural engineer who looked at it prior to us purchasing it said it'll survive a 30 year mortgage (not that we're staying that long). Ours has an iron railing too; I personally think they look good with the brick. Just be happy your interior isn't hundred-year-old plaster (I know plaster is so cool and old and a lost art and all the other things people that don't have to deal with it say, but gently caress this poo poo; sometimes you want to be able to cut a hole for an outlet or fish some wire without it turning into an ordeal). If there's one thing looking at this and my neighbor's house's really messy "fix it quick" joints is telling me, it's that I should continue practicing sticking two bricks together and jointing them until I can do it without making it look like that. I don't know if this is your first house, but from checking out friends' first houses closely, it seems to be that there's some mickey mouse bullshit in every house (some more than others....kastein).
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Oct 18, 2014 07:28
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Brennanite posted:I actually like the old iron railing, I think it matches the character of the house. Of course, my grandparents' house has the same railing, so perhaps it is merely nostalgia. The railing is relatively modest compared to some of the swooping huge railings in the area, but one of the posts is rusted out from the concrete and I don't think it's very safe. I was looking at black aluminum railings that look similar, minus the curls, but maybe a restoration is possible. Jared592 posted:Haha, this looks familiar. Our 1920s balloon-construction house w/ brick exterior has some bulging/lean going on, but the structural engineer who looked at it prior to us purchasing it said it'll survive a 30 year mortgage (not that we're staying that long). Ours has an iron railing too; I personally think they look good with the brick. Just be happy your interior isn't hundred-year-old plaster (I know plaster is so cool and old and a lost art and all the other things people that don't have to deal with it say, but gently caress this poo poo; sometimes you want to be able to cut a hole for an outlet or fish some wire without it turning into an ordeal). Yes, thankfully the inside is in quite good condition. It's pretty obvious that the flipper focused his $$ at making the inside look nice to lure in first-time suckers like me! Though the initial inspection report way underestimated some of the issues with the house. I'm absolutely getting a structural engineer's opinion on the next home I buy. The abandoned house across the street has been bought by a flipper and there have been contractors in and out for the past several months. I guess today is subcontractor day because there's about 10 cars parked on the street around the house this morning. One good thing about all these flippers is that it should increase my property value. When I moved in, the house to the east of me and the two houses across the street were not occupied but have been flipped and sold.
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Oct 18, 2014 16:50
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Any recommendations for deadbolts? Defiant were installed when I moved in, but one of the deadbolts was literally twisted around inside when I took it out. Not very reassuring for security.
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Oct 18, 2014 23:37
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From what I've read, Defiant is a Kwikset re-brand exclusively carried at Home Depot, and apparently both Kwikset and Defiant are total garbage. I'm actually looking for a quality dead-bolt and latch combo myself so I'm interested in suggestions on that front as well.
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Oct 19, 2014 04:40
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Jared592 posted:From what I've read, Defiant is a Kwikset re-brand exclusively carried at Home Depot, and apparently both Kwikset and Defiant are total garbage. I'm actually looking for a quality dead-bolt and latch combo myself so I'm interested in suggestions on that front as well. Does anyone have any experience with these http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/improvement/security/the-top-6-digital-deadbolts#slide-1 or any locks like them?
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Oct 19, 2014 07:38
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Yesterday, I got this  This morning I did this (with lots of help from Adam, my future brother-in-law, who you can see creeping)  Then we did this  Improvements over the old door: opens, closes, latches, keeps out the elements. It's a prefab steel door from Lowe's, I put the same thing in on the other door last year and it's worked great so far. Here's some of the debris so far. Going to take the steel, copper, and lead pipes to the scrap yard at some point. I'll probably set out the doors on the lawn and Craigslist them, most likely.  Going to schedule gutters tomorrow. Also going to have a termite person come - I haven't seen any rotted wood or termite tunnels, but I'd rather be sure that not. I've got some 2x6 and 2x4s so I can repair some roof rafters. I'll get pics when I get up in the attic.
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Oct 19, 2014 21:45
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Not a lot to report today. Gutters getting installed tomorrow and they were going to charge me  to remove the old gutter over the porch. I'm now looking to use this new toy, though  That reduced the old galvanized steel gutter to pieces  A nice dark, rich soil came out of the gutter when I pulled it down. Gutter composting! 
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Oct 21, 2014 01:55
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Here's a preview of what's going on in my crawlspace  Will update more on Friday or Saturday
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Oct 22, 2014 19:41
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Is that rotted joist sistered up to a good one or is the picture throwing me off?
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Oct 23, 2014 23:24
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It's a rotted joist sistered to a rotted stud, sistered to a 2x10 that goes about 6" past the rotted area. Let's just say I'm not really sure how the bathroom is still standing, and I may have found the reason for my wall leaning
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Oct 23, 2014 23:39
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Wow. So what's the plan? Jack it up and sister with a legit joist?
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Oct 23, 2014 23:51
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Basically. When I have access to a real computer I'll post all of what's going on, but for that area of the house I think sistering in new joist beams to an appropriate span with appropriate fasteners is what's going to happen. I don't know if I'll even need to jack up the house there, but some other areas...
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Oct 24, 2014 00:04
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 Welcome to my crawlspace  Here's the joist I posted from a few days ago. You can see that the old joist is just completely missing in the middle, and has been "supported" by a 2x4 at the bottom and then a 2x4 at the top. The house flippers installed the 2x10 on the other side of the board...  ... nailed to the structural bark on the joist as you can see here. As I said before, the 2x10 only extends a few inches beyond the complete rotten and missing part of the joist.  One joist to the west, there's this. The joist was notched vertically to accommodate the PVC, and at the very top of the image you can see the beginnings of a large knot. I guess I didn't upload a pic of it, but the knot hole takes up about 1/3 of the joist.  Going a bit more west, there's another notch in the joist and lots of old water damage. Taken all together, I'm surprised the floor hasn't moved a ton, especially when I've taken a bath in the past. It does explain why the floor creaks when I step into the tub, however.  In the southeast corner of the house, there's some random Pex going nowhere (I suspect it was an outside spigot that was abandoned) and also some missing mud sill along with some rotted sill and joists.  Close up of the rot. Not too terrible.  A little further north, there's these 2 joists that are not sistered but adjacent to each other. I have no clue what happened here, but the joist is clearly rotten - based on the plywood patch above and the location in the house, it may have been some sort of ducting?  Just in case you were wondering if the adjacent joist would carry the load - there's a gigantic hole drilled through it.  Moving on to the east wall, the same one with the brick issues, it appears that there is no mud sill. At all. Like it's just gone from this side of the house. The rim joist is resting on air.  In addition, the rim joist is sistered, but they are both rotten at the bottom. Whenever the foundation vent was installed, the rim joists were severely notched out without reinforcement.  Moving a bit north from here is this, uhh, girder thing. It's not very supportive.  Here's the far northeast corner of the hose, and why I believe poor foundation support has contributed to some wall issues and sloped floors. There's a large, old 4x4 acting as a girder and it is poorly supported. There are cedar door/window shims acting as the shims, and the only place it even contacts to joist is on the far left part.  You can see that the girder is supported by a plain wood block directly in contact with the dirt  gently caress you, Sparky. I've got some more time to spend under the house, that's for sure. Gutters are up, they look great. Had 2 masons over, both disagreeing with what needs to be done. Laminator fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Oct 26, 2014 |
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Oct 26, 2014 04:52
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Okay, last post documenting what's wrong structurally. Then maybe I'll actually try and fix something. The roof and attic is framed with dimensional 2x4s, and they are spaced like 24", with boards and then plywood and asphalt shingles. The roof doesn't have much sag or rafter deflection, except for the point where there's the cracked rafter.  Cracked rafter. Plan here is to sister, but should I sister with 2x4s or 2x6s? And if I use 2x6s should I add a 2x3 or something to make the 2x4 "fit" better with the sistered board? Also, should I extend the sister about 2-3' on each side or would it be better to run it the full length of the rafter?  Rafters pulling from the ridge. The structural engineer said I should attach 2x6 collar ties on the rafters, which is straightforward enough.  The engineer also wanted me to add vertical bracing under the joint here, and have the bracing supported on a load-bearing wall. The problem is that this joint is about 7' away from any load-bearing structures - any ideas on how to accomplish this?  Some other bracing to the rafters is pretty, uhh, poor quality lumber. I don't know what kind of support this is, it wouldn't be a purlin, right? That board is attached over a load-bearing wall.
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Oct 26, 2014 22:09
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Holy crap. Are those really pulled that far away or were the angles never cut properly to begin with?
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Oct 26, 2014 22:23
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Probably a bit of both. Especially on that second-to-last rafter on the left you can see how the angle of the cut is really off I would love to add some steel rafter-to-ridge ties, but don't think those could be properly attached without removing the roof sheating
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Oct 26, 2014 22:26
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Also.....are you sure that last pic is of "poor quality lumber" or has it been bent from shifting in a direction it wasn't meant to control. It looks like it's bent from compression when it maybe possible was put there to control shear. It's hard to tell exactly where/what is it without seeing more and how it's attached (and to what) below the insulation.
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Oct 26, 2014 22:36
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I guess it's possible. The engineer thought it was just a bent board, and none of the other boards in that area are bent.    nailed to the top plate of an inside wall Laminator fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Oct 26, 2014 |
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Oct 26, 2014 22:46
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I'm not about to contradict a structural engineer who 1.) should be more qualified than I am and 2.) saw it in person but I'm having a hard time coming up with a scenario where anyone would actually use a piece of lumber that bent in a structural element......even if the didn't really know what the hell it was for (because they simply wouldn't have done or it wouldn't have passed inspection if they did it solely for that purpose).
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Oct 27, 2014 01:40
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That enormous notch in that joist for the foundation vent is nuts, but I don't know what the standard "approved" fix would be. Possibly just a fresh full length joist far enough in to allow the foundation vent to still do its job?
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Oct 27, 2014 02:32
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Motronic posted:I'm not about to contradict a structural engineer who 1.) should be more qualified than I am and 2.) saw it in person but I'm having a hard time coming up with a scenario where anyone would actually use a piece of lumber that bent in a structural element......even if the didn't really know what the hell it was for (because they simply wouldn't have done or it wouldn't have passed inspection if they did it solely for that purpose). This may be the issue. Any suggestions for how to fix it? The roof over that area doesn't carry a ton of load, so I'm not really sure where the compressive force is coming from. Maybe I'll have the engineer come back and take another look. Jared592 posted:That enormous notch in that joist for the foundation vent is nuts, but I don't know what the standard "approved" fix would be. Possibly just a fresh full length joist far enough in to allow the foundation vent to still do its job? Yeah, I have no clue. One thing that I have never been able to get a straight answer about is whether you should even vent the crawlspace or not. It's like a 50/50 split between "yes, vents open in summer and closed in winter" and "no, vents are bad close them off and encapsulate." It would be easy if the crawlspace was to be closed off because I would just put new joists in and be done. But I'm not planning on encapsulating at this moment, so I'll need to figure out a solution for it. Honestly, those joists are providing 0 structural support at the moment because there's no mud sill on the south side of the wall, and where there is a mud sill on the norther side the joists are rotten at the bottom. Laminator fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Oct 27, 2014 |
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Oct 27, 2014 03:21
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Laminator posted:This may be the issue. Any suggestions for how to fix it? The roof over that area doesn't carry a ton of load, so I'm not really sure where the compressive force is coming from. Maybe I'll have the engineer come back and take another look. If it carried enough load to bend the poo poo out of it and I sure as hell wouldn't be able to tell you what to hydraulic jack back into position without seeing it in person. This is why you have a structural engineer on site. I'm not going to internet diagnose this job for him.
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Oct 27, 2014 04:25
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I would be scared to get close to that thing for fear of the pressure suddenly snapping it and having giant wood splinters fly into my eyes... I'm curious what the inside of your house looks like. If they gutted the house down to the bare bones I wonder if there was a problem with cracks in the walls and ceilings prior to you purchasing it. Have you noticed any cracking since you've moved in? How about any new water damage? The new door looks great.
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Oct 30, 2014 17:12
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gently caress me. My wife and I are looking at houses (in the Chicago area, so kind of expensive) and reading all these home repair/renovation threads has encouraged me to look into an alternative living situation, like a tent, or a cardboard box. I feel like I'd be fine doing some of the more minor repairs, but if I found a bent board like that in the attic, and a leaning garage, and some of the other poo poo you're finding in your crawlspace, I would run far far away. Good luck!
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Oct 30, 2014 21:09
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americanzero4128 posted:gently caress me. My wife and I are looking at houses (in the Chicago area, so kind of expensive) and reading all these home repair/renovation threads has encouraged me to look into an alternative living situation, like a tent, or a cardboard box. I feel like I'd be fine doing some of the more minor repairs, but if I found a bent board like that in the attic, and a leaning garage, and some of the other poo poo you're finding in your crawlspace, I would run far far away. Good luck! This is why a home inspection by a competent person is critically important when purchasing a home. It won't (can't) find everything, but it would have immediately identified huge obvious red flags in this place. And that doesn't mean it's not worth buying. It's just not worth buying at the price of a comparable home that's not a poo poo show.
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Oct 30, 2014 22:16
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Hope you're you enjoying the schadenfreude. Was getting deeper into the attic to get some measurements and made the mistake of looking up  That's another view of the common rafters, hip rafters, and ridge board intersecting. I'm guessing that the original builders were using the 1920s equivalent of lovely, dirty meth when they hammered this together. poo poo like this common rafter are what made me say the poo poo-quality lumber comment  Working on paint and primer for the back doors since it's going to be cold and wet soon. I've had 4 people look at my wall now, and each one had given me a different answer. I'm also beginning to doubt the quality of my structural engineer and am going to ask him to come take a bit of a closer look at the place...
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Oct 31, 2014 04:29
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I was reading this thread and looking at the first pic made me jump out of the way terrified that the roof would fall in on me. I'm reading the thread on my phone. On the bus.
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Oct 31, 2014 07:18
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Holy gently caress.
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Nov 2, 2014 06:00
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Burn your house down, change your name, move to south America, raise livestock. Holy hell. That place looks terrifying.
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Nov 2, 2014 16:31
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So what can be done about that, can you put in some temporary supports and start reinforcing or replacing stuff?
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Nov 3, 2014 09:53
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