Pensive Thoughts
Keep it Simple, Stupid.
And complicated means expensive...
The problem we have now is how to get from A to B with regards to some of the plans we have for repairing the house. What is making it complicated is in order to fix the foundation, we need to support the house on something else. That sounds pretty straight forward, and for many houses it would be simple.
The main floor of most houses are made up of joists, usually 2" x 10" or 2" x 8" boards on edge. Current building methods rest the joists on a sill plate which, in turn, rests on the foundation. On the joists the subfloor is attached, then the walls are placed on top of the subfloor and the house is built up.
The great part about this design is if you want to lift the house, you just need to support all the joists (usually done with at least two steel I beams) and lift. Unfortunately this is not how our house is built.
Our house has two sill beams, 5" x 5" pieces of timber, that run the lenght of the house on top of the foundation wall. The joists rest on the sill beam (that is good), but so do the studs (that is not good). This is a variation of what is called balloon framing, and it is not very popular any more. What is even more mystifying is the joists in our house are spaced every 18 inches, which is less support than current building code recommends. That wouldn't be a huge problem except that the studs for the house are spaced every 16 inches.
Think about it.
The studs don't line up with the joists. In fact they "wander" in spacing along the sill beam.
Why do we care? Well, if we try and lift the house by the joists, the floor of the house will raise up, but the walls of the house will stay put and the house would not lift off the foundation. Gack! The extra problem is the sill beam is rotten in many places and we would have to replace them first, on both sides before we could use them to raise the house.
Tamara: I am hoping your house isn't keeping any more secrets from you. (01/20/07)
pensivemonk: Actually I will always bet that further secrets await. I have yet to be proven wrong!
pm (01/23/07)