Screwy Framing Part 2

Or as I like to say...
Screwy Framing Part 2, Electric Bugaloo!

When I was fixing the framing from the earlier post I made a sad, sad realization...
That the wet walls for the master bath and laundry were really, really uh, odd...
So odd in fact that I have been staring at them for a while now and my head is just swimming...
There appears to be soooo much wrong with this area that I'm at a loss as to where to start and how to go about fixing all these issues...or honestly if they are serious issues or not.

To help organize my thoughts and aggravations I'm going to break the issues I see down into two sections. This area we are talking about is the intersection between the old and new and some framing in the addition.

First off,
The possibly unnecessary, definitely undersized and unsupported beam to no where.

Take a look at the picture below of the floor framing of the two story addition.

The floor is framed with #1 2by6's 16"oc that span 11' they are attached with joist hangers at both ends.
The joists are at their max allowable span for #1 2by6's with a live load of 40psf, and dead load of 20psf and a deflection of L/360. (not sure if thats the case here)
The beam in the middle of the span is what I'm confused about.
So officially the joists don't need a beam at their mid-point right?

The PO chose to tile the floor above with large format 18" square tiles.
I'm guessing that they installed this beam because they wanted a much less bouncy floor for the tile job...makes sense no?......well no, wait till you see how the beam is installed...

The Beam
The beam is a Select Structural 4by8 that spans ~11'. Double jack studs on one side and a hanger on the other.

From my CBC span table for interior load bearing girders I get a max span of 4'-1" (for a double 2by8)that's for #2 wood with 2 floors above.
This beam is structural select so it should span farther but I can't seem to find a girder span table that takes grade into account?
From the joist span tables going from #2 wood to select structural gives you about 2' more in span.
So lets say this beam can safely span 6'...yet its set to span 11'!
Maybe they were thinking that the beam isn't really loaded and this long span would still be enough to take the 'bounce' out of the floor to make it suitable for tiling?
The floor above doesn't really bounce and I have seen no evidence of the tile/grout cracking after a year of living here.

If you look at the picture above it looks like the beam is supported at that little wall and farther down at its end...but its not.
Take a look at these pics.

The short wall.

This was built after the beam was put in place and it doesn't actually touch the beam...If they had just built the wall two inches longer (to the right) they could of supported the beam at ~4' in.

Missed it by that much

The wall on the lower left is the wall for the bathroom...instead of just building it under the beam and supporting it (and making a tiny bath a couple inches bigger) they built it exactly to miss the beam?"

Here's My Favorite Part

The beam is hung from an existing (original to the house) ~6by6 beam by a joist hanger.
One side of the hanger is filled with 16D nails (good) but the side pictured looks like its been installed with drywall screws to me! At least they used the heavy grade hangers.
Also, do you see that line at about the mid point on the hanger? That's where the beam ends and the between the joists blocking begins.

So, the hanger is hung mostly from the blocking...is that a good thing?

What we have here is one beam hung off the other and you'd expect there to be at least a 4by4 post under this area right?

Noooope, this is what I meant by a 'beam to no where'.

Check out this shot below

You can see where the one beam is connected to the other and right underneath it is....nothing....
For some freaking reason they decided having a vertical soil pipe in that EXACT spot was more important than supporting this junction.

This pic shows that this junction is supported by a single 2by4!

And its not even under it but next to it? The original beam spans probably 6" past this lone 2by4 'post'.

At the bottom of the soil pipe it even looks like theres an elbow that if removed would probably exactly clear up enough space for the needed post.

Why did they not do this? Arrrgh!

Original Beam and Wet Wall

Check out this shot of the original beam.

Its being supported by another crappy conglomeration of non-plumb, crushed at the top looking 2by4 studs.
They installed the studs tight to one edge. So there is ~2" of unsupported edge on this beam. It looks to me like the beam has rotated down a bit on the unsupported side....
I installed a nice 4by6 post on the one end, but all of this mess??? I don't know what to do about it.
This beam supports the joists for the original back porch area of the house and there's been an addition built on top of that, though, the joists in the 2nd story addition run at right angles to these.

Holy Bowing Studs Part 2

Here's a pulled back shot. Bowing, bent, unplumb studs.
I'd love to just rip out the studs one at a time and replace them with 2by6's to fully support the beam but there is a problem.

They framed a wet wall in the way.

So, instead of using 2by6's to fully support the load bearing header they chose to do this conglomeration of crap! You see that band of double 2by4's along the top? That's part of the framing for the dropped ceiling in the laundry room and its directly in the way of using 2by6 studs!
It seems like I'm going to have to demolish the ceiling and this wall just to fix it.
Or, can it be fixed in place.

This entire ridiculous thing could of been avoided if they would of used 2by6 studs and just brought all the plumbing out to this side and then framed a non load bearing 2by4 wall to cover it. They would of lost a couple of inches max out of the size of this room.

Another shot of the corner.

All that wood just sorta tacked on everywhere...whoever built this sure didn't mind wasting wood...

Questions I need answered

1. Is the beam doing something useful? If so should I be supporting is more along its length?
2. What the heck to do with the beam-beam intersection?
3. Is there a way to rebuild that 2by4 wet wall with 2by6's and not have to totally destroy the walls-ceiling attached to it?

Geez, just writing this made me tired...

A Little Bit Of Fixed Framing

Earlier I posted this pic about some bent wall studs.

After much discussion with my SE it was decided that it would be a good idea to rebuild the wall 'correctly'.
This is at the dividing line between the old and new parts of the house...well, sorta... I didn't realize that the original house had a little bump-out in the back here...possibly for a covered back porch or stair well (more on this later....)

First I had to adjust the main soil stack for the two studio apartments.
You can see in this pic that its run goofily into the wall plane?

This is another instance where I want to slap the PO...there's going to be lots more to come don't worry.
The entire reason for this wonky plumbing is that they cut the vertical pipe that comes down from the ceiling about 6" to short...so instead of just adding some length they used a wacky combination of angles to 'make it work'.

The fix.

 Actually all I did was remove one 45 deg piece and use two longer couplings.
Its not perfect there will be some 'lippage' that might collect some 'solids' but I think the nice continuous slope will probably work in my favor.

Now on to actually fixing the wall.

A very important beam intersects this wall and it wasn't really being supported at its end by anything more than a single overloaded 2by4...

So, out comes the 3 ton car jack and I give the beam a little lift.

Then where there was really no serious support for this beam I installed a 4by6 post.

Then with the addition of some #1 s-dry studs from Economy Lumber the wall was done!

All the studs are vertical and not bowed!
Its a weird set-up on this wall. This wall is load bearing to the left of the post but not the right.
Here's a closeup of the opening where I hope the HVAC plenums will fit through.

While I was 'at it' I finished installing the foundation bolts along this oh so important wall for shear strength.

I had to use the slotted washers on the existing bolts as they were very off center. I love that the slotted washers cost more than the standard and you have to use an additional washer on each one.

Header Screw up.
The triple 2by8 header I built has developed a crack...

Here's a closer-up shot.

I showed this to my BI and he said basically, not to worry!!!
I used seriously wet wood to build this and its shrunk as its dried out in the basement.
I don't get my local 'real' lumber yard. They keep all their standard framing lumber outside year round...so in the wet season you get wood that's crazy wet. I remember carrying the wood from the car to the basement and thinking...dang this 8' 2by8 weighs soooo much...

I'm going to have to put shims in all around on this..I've already done the jack studs....live and learn I guess. Buy the #1 S-dry from Economy if you are worried about what using seriously wet wood will do to your project.

This whole thing started out with my just wanting to put the foundation bolts in the right place!

That's it for now.

Next up, 'Oy Vey!! More screwy framing to deal with.'

This Can't Be Okay, Can It?

Holy Bowing Studs Batman!!!

Take a look at the pic below.

Those 2by4 studs are bowed pretty seriously.
With my 4' level up against it, it looks like they bow about 1" out!

I didn't notice this before but in the pic below from the previous post I think you can see just see the bow.

There's no way this could of just happened right?

I'm a bit concerned because this wall is the original end of the house.
There are two floors above this which makes me think that this wall should of been done
with 2by6's instead of 2by4's.

I'm thinking that I should not leave them this way.

Anybody have any thoughts on what I should do about this situation?

Help!!!!

I'm Not Stringing Ya Along...Stair Building Pt. 2

Or maybe I should of titled this post, 'Your Carriage is Here.' (Framing Humor)

Okay, so, after the deconstruction now I have to turn this pile of wood into a set of stairs...

I double checked my measurements after the area was clear and got the same measurements (whew). I set the stair buttons on my framing square to 10" and 7 3/8" and started drawing some lines...then I noticed something...the edges of lumber are pretty rounded..which means I had to kinda guess at the intersection between the previous line and the square...I found that my estimating was not so good...I was getting a systematic error... I needed to figure out a better way...

Enter my rule from one of my machine squares. I could line this up on the previous line and extend it down so that I had the square intersecting with the correct extension of my rise/run lines. I guess pros just 'eyeball' it?

Skipping a bunch of steps...I used my sidewinder to cut the treads then my jigsaw to finish the edges...and look what we have, a sorta finished stringer.

I was trying to figure out how to attach this stringer to the dropped rim joist and came upon this conundrum. The stringer, being at an angle doesn't fit into the fracking joist hanger? All the books I have show the stringers being attached with joist hangers and since the stringers are always on an angle this has to ALWAYS be a problem right? This can't be good can it with the stinger not bearing on the hanger correctly?

I decided that what I am going to do is cut a little wedge from the bottom of these offcuts and glue it to the stringer with some super-fab Elmer's nano-glue. That way the stringer will be in contact 100% with the hanger. Should work right?

In mucking about with the joist hangers I got to collecting all our Simpson hardware.....dang, we have a lot of it...

Even more hardware....look at that bin of bolts....that's left over from when we did the deck at our last house! Why did I think I needed 8" lag bolts?

Here's what I decided to do about the dropped rim joist. I used two Simpson brackets and their structural screws to attach it to the 6by6 joist. I also sunk 3 screws into the joist on the edge that you can just see the bottom of here. It feels pretty solid but maybe the left side has a bit more flexion than I'd like. Once I decide where the joist hangers are going to go exactly I might add another bracket on the left hand side.

Watch that first step! Here's a shot of the 2by4 kicker bolted in place.

And voila the stringer fits!!!!

Some how I F'd up the notch for the kicker...I mean I really got it wrong....I'll have to add some wood back in on the left hand side to stabilize the stringer. I plan on attaching the stringers to the kicker with Simpson brackets also.

Buuuuuuut, check this out. The fricken stringer is basically perfectly level!! Woo-Hooooooo!!!

Next up is to trace this one good stringer onto the other two (not including the messed up notch for the kicker) and hopefully be able to replicate it pretty closely. Then glue my little wedges into the top edges of all three. While the glue is drying I'll cut all the treads@ 44" wide.

I still haven't exactly figured out where the posts are going to go but I'm working on it....

reFraming

The bumpout is up on crutches, but it’s better and stronger than ever before! The jacks lifted it back inline, and the sag is gone

<-- Check out the underside.There's a new 2x10 sistered onto each joist from the edge of the bumpout through to the super-beefy beam running down the center of the garage.

It feels much more stable there too, walking and jumping on it from above. And soon we can get back to stapling up the heating fins so sometime this winter we have a chance of having heat. It'll be much easier to get the fins and tubing out under the bumpout with the underside exposed like this.

<-- These are those joists from the inside. You can see a bit of daylight coming through at the ends, and the sistered joists are resting on our super-beefy garage beam.

You can also see one set of window openings framed in with the new header and post.

Here’s a better view of the window framing in the garage/workshop.

The openings have new 6x6 headers, which are supported in the middle by 4x6 posts

This is the window framing in the bedroom in back.. there's actually wall back there now!

Which makes it reeeaally dark in there.. this pic is blindly taken with the flash. If only we had some windows..

the Wall, continued

Here we have the beginning of the sheathing.

The windows you see there leaning up against the house are from the garage.. they don't match any other windows in the house and because they’re double-wides we had some problems with the framing that needed fixing.

From the inside a couple days ago you can see what the problem with the header is.. there isn't one! There's just a couple 2x6s turned on their side.. Not sure if you can see the sag in this picture, but it's pretty pronounced.

To span the opening over 2 windows with two stories above, we would have to put in a pretty beefy header, which would mean moving the windows down and buying new expensive beams. The alternative is to split up the windows and put a supporting post in between to support the header in the middle, which is what we decided to do.

Another issue we need to address is that the bumpout is underframed, and sagging even worse since the foundation was done. We figured it would be much better to deal with that now, before we closed up the walls. So we need to sister 2x10s to all the joists that cantilever out in the bumpout.

Here you can see the supports in place to prop it back up to level. Next, the joists can be attached nice and straight-like

the Wall

The East wall of the house has been a bit of a problem, particularly the outside wall of the downstairs bedroom. Between the 2 falling apart windows, and the “windows” that are essentially panes of glass somehow suspended midway up the wall, and the door opening we got rid of, there's pretty much no wall there anyway.

There's nothing to do but rebuild the wall from scratch, which of course means up to all modern codes with shear wall and housewrap and flashing.. so we talked a lot about what we should do with the rest of the wall towards the front of the house. Although it wasn’t a cost we weren’t expecting now, the obvious best thing for the house in the long run is to sheath and waterproof the whole length of the wall. We had a pile of 2x6s from an old project (which I spent HOURS moving from a pile out back to a pile along the side of the house.. but that’s not a very exciting blog post), which made a huge dent in the materials we had to purchase for this.

Another issue is that, because of all the openings in the outside wall of the bedroom in back, there is very little siding longer that a foot or two long. Short of having custom siding milled to the thickness and profile of the original siding, there would be a bunch of work to shim out anything we could buy off the shelf to line up with the original siding at the front of the house, and it would not be likely to wind up seamless, even with all that effort.. Ultimately, we decided to use the new siding we bought for the back of the house (which, conveniently enough is still sitting on sawhorses smack in the middle of the garage in the way of everything we try to do down there) and get more of it to replace everything along the wall with the new stuff. The original siding will be perfect for the back of the house.. we have enough long runs to do most of it, and the short runs will be fine for what’s hidden behind the stairs.

Once we decided all that, we were stuck with a decision on doing it ourselves over the next several months, or hiring someone who could get it done well in a fraction of that time. Dan interviewed at least a dozen contractors, and found a local team that came very highly recommended, sounded like they knew what they were talking about, and who does excellent work.
(Note to one of the contractors we talked to.. if you fail your contractor's exam A) do NOT bring that up in an interview, and B) if you happen to let it slip, you might want to consider charging slightly less than what a licensed contractor would get)

So, they got started today and should be done in about a week

Check out the new use of our former plywood backdoor!