Joisting Match

That's what the last section of boards under my joists looked like. These are two of the chunks I cut out. They look heavily rotted and/or eaten. I think this was all past damage. I didn't see any evidence of bugs in the wood, so if they were there, they've probably been gassed. I also didn't find any water water. Even though it hasn't actually rained recently, I feel that the concrete cap that was at some point placed around the first couple of feet of the exterior walls should keep water out. I've also worked on the grading to make sure water isn't pooling around there.

Now I just need to put this exhaust flue back together and lay brick to fill in this hole. The floating joists are temporarily held up with a couple of jack posts, though I may make them more permanent once I have the new bricks in place. I almost feel like cutting out more of the boards that were rotted away, but it looks like the boards are healthy starting where I stopped cutting. Also, I don't need to spend all my time doing this brick by brick in one room.

Joist For Fun

It seems this can result with unnoticed water penetration. The leaks are long gone, but nobody fixed the results.

Today I worked on getting prepared for some brick work that needs to be done. This is in the East room that is currently torn apart. Obviously it has no floor. Right now the ceiling has been removed as well. While removing the wainscoting, this corner lost some bricks. This morning I removed the fallen bricks, then scraped mortar and vacuumed. 


After that, I could get a good look at the joists in that corner. The last three joists were considerably lower in that corner. I thought I would just sister them and build up the subfloor to flat above. However, after seeing what's in the picture below, I decided to jack them up and make sure they're sitting on a solid foundation. 

Results of former half-hearted repairs.

It might be hard to see in the picture above, but the joist on the left is sitting on two semi-rotten 2x4 boards stacked on top of each other. The middle joist is partially rotted on the very end so that it only has less than an inch on the foundation. The joist on the right was rotted back further so that it almost seemed like it was barely on the joist. 

Now that the joists are raised and sistered, these water pipes will make removing the rotten 2x4 boards quite fun. The pipes are likely to be removed soon for a re-plumbing project. 

Unfortunately, this last joist also has the house entry for the two gas lines drilled through the middle and, therefore, cannot be raised. Considering this, I decided to use raise the left two joists to rebuild the foundation underneath. Another trip to Home Depot and I came home with two new jack posts and three four-foot joist pieces to sister to the ends to make sure they don't slip off. After some post wrestling and cursing in the cellar, during which I had a scare when the right-most joist actually slipped off the foundation, I had two of three joists jacked to level. Next, I sistered the three of them and replaced the subfloor (still temporary). 

Jacked and sistered