Structural home repair screw jack build.

[fyidiy]

Getting ready to attack water damaged and rotted second floor structural joists and need to build temporary support prior to the removal of the load bearing exterior wall. The fabrication effort was to create 20 screw jacks using 1.25" threaded rod.

[fyidiy]

Welded the top nuts to the threaded rod today. Also, added a wider base plate to the first few under-engineered examples. Nice to have this, "job to do the job" effort completed.

[fyidiy]

Here's the reason for the screw jacks. This is the second floor above a great room. The chimney has been removed. Once the temporary support is put into place the exterior wall can be breached for the repair effort.

The scaffolding had two levels for the chimney removal. Now, it's just one level for the rim joist replacement. The original cause of the issue was stucco applied to both the house and the chimney together with no expansion joint. The house and chimney move/expand at different rates causing small cracks. The previous owners let the gutters overflow for years and the water entered the interior walls to cause this mess. Stucco is a fantastic finish when done right. It's rarely done right, however.

[fyidiy]

Gettin' closer to putting the screw jacks into service. The platform on top of the scaffolding will be fabricated out of salvaged decking joists.

The ceiling surface is at 11 feet. The second floor joists are at 12.5 feet above the great room floor.

[fyidiy]

Platform and screw jacks placed into service with the necessary support cribbing.

Bad news is the platform and platform-to-second-floor joist support isn't working out as hoped. Will be taking the platform out of the picture and going with straight up 12' posts. The platform will still be utilized for gaining easy access to the ceiling, however.

[fyidiy]

Platform removed and single 4"x6"x12' cut down to 10'6". The re-engineering is far more stable. Tomorrow the screw jacks get employed upstairs to support the roof truss system from the currently-supported second floor.

First photo is the cribbing tower (screw jack inside) and the single post setup.

Second photo is just the cribbing tower.

Third photo is showing the use of electrical box covers as shim stock and the extended screw jack performing its intended function.

[fyidiy]

A house with a *big* hole in the side...

First photo shows the rotten second floor joists. The ends are completely eroded from their supports. In the second photo the bad wood in the floor joists has been removed.

The second photo demonstrates the deployment of the screw jacks in helping the house to stand even though there's currently no load bearing wall available while repairs are made.

You can see the cribbing towers doing their job in the second floor.

[fyidiy]

Hey, the new rim joist on the second floor has been installed! Finally, making some serious progress rather than just doing the job to do the job...

[fyidiy]

Finally, the progress has moved inside... Second floor joists repaired! Only one more to go.

You can see the temporary beam being used to support the second floor while the repair work is performed.

Couldn't do this job without the screw jacks, that's for sure.

[fyidiy]

All floor joists now repaired. No more temporary support from the great room below. Building inspector has approved moving on to the next phase which is correcting the water damage rot of the second floor ceiling/roof-truss intersection.

The screw jacks and cribbing towers will be employed on the second floor to "lift" the roof truss system off the exterior load bearing wall to affect the repair.

First photo shows the temporary support posts from the first floor great room missing. The second photo shows the right-most remaining floor joist scabbed and anchored into place with hanger.

Makin' progress!

[fyidiy]

Second floor ceiling taken down to reveal the roof truss system.

The building inspector has stated that if there's *any* compromise of the truss system I'll have to spring for an engineering consult. Don't know how that's going to be less than $500.00.

Anywho, I hope I can convince him some plywood gussets will fix the problem without wasting the money on a "consult". Besides, gussets will be the solution an engineering firm would specifiy.

Photo #1. Ceiling dropped revealing the roof truss system.
Photo #2. Water damaged truss plus the original builder modification for chimney installation -- a no-no. "D" cell battery for scale.
Photo #3. What a normal truss looks like.
Photo #4. Another view of the bad truss. The fresh wood and metal to the right is the "quickie" roof fix for when I took down the chimney.

[geezer]

I guess I'm your first responder,,,reason nobody else has responded is,,this project is every home owners nightmare,,,many are wondering if they have the same problem,,,I cannot even guess at what the cost would be if you had to hire someone to do it....best of luck on your project...I shudder to think of undertaking a job like that..

[fyidiy]

Yeah, it's kind of a big project... But, one day and one sub-task at a time. Mount Rushmore wasn't completed in a day. I figure I'm past the half way point for the structural stuff. The bedroom and the bathroom will still need to be reconstituted after this work (drywall, paint, flooring, etc.).

On the beneficial side I pretty much know the inside of the house now. It's all electric and I'm planning to convert it over to natural gas. I know know where all the wall voids are for the piping, intake, and exhaust runs.

The future plan is also to remove all the stucco on the house and replace with concrete fiber clapboard siding. There are a few other small cracks in the current stucco and I want to make sure to catch and fix any other water damage issues before they get as big as this one...

The building inspector stopped by yesterday (01/26/2015) and approved my proposed fix for the roof truss. The good news being I don't have to spring for an official engineering consult. Basically, I'll be using triangular plywood gussets to sandwich the end of the bad truss in addition to a couple of lengths of new 2x4 as a bearing surface on the to-be-constructed wall.

[fyidiy]

Second floor external stucco wall removed.

That's one big hole in the side of the house...

[fyidiy]

Original window on the right removed. The wall cap plate has been repaired and wall studs installed. The studs on the right are just temporary for the "weather proofing" Visqueen. Once the current storm moves through I'll frame for a new larger window in its near original location.

Another week or so and the screw jacks welded up last summer will have completed their work!


Photo #1. Original window removed on the right and wall studs installed.
Photo #2. Old water damaged wall top plate replaced.
Photo #3. The butt joints for the top plate were planned to have their seems above a wall stud. The joints are staggered across the whole wall.
Photo #4. Visqueen applied to keep the weather out during today's (02/01/2015) Midwest winter storm.

[Jake98]

Fun project! (Not fun time of year..) I wouldn't blame the stucco, that was a roofing/flashing leak at the chimney. Good luck.

[fyidiy]

No, the stucco was improperly installed. The water damage is from the original installers buttering the concrete block chimney and house framing as one surface with no expansion joints. The house and chimney flex/expand/move differently. This allowed full length cracks to develop along the house/chimney intersection. Of course, it didn't help the previous owners failed to clean out the gutters causing water to spill over at the chimney eventually finding its way into the cracks.

In addition the stucco was applied directly to the fiber sheeting. There's no water/vapor barrier to speak of. And, they applied the stucco all the way down the foundation to 1.5 feet below grade.

I'm not blaming stucco. It's a great siding when installed correctly. It's rarely installed correctly, however.

Today, the second floor wall rough framing was complete and the jacks removed. The house is now standing under its own structural integrity. This is a major milestone in this project.

[Rambozo]

Fun project! (Not fun time of year..)

It does seem like an odd time to start a project like this in a part of the country that gets real winters.

[fyidiy]

The project started at the beginning of last summer with the screw jack build and the chimney tear down. In October of 2014, the structural work began.

Actually, this is a good time to do such open-to-the world work since the weather is less of a factor for damaging unprotected wood.

The temperatures really aren't that bad because the constant movement of work keeps one warm.

Today I repaired the faulty roof truss. Since this was the last repair to utilize one of the fabricated screw jacks I'll put an end to the thread.

My plans are to hold on to five of the screw jacks for possible future use and put the others along with the beams, posts, and cribbing up on Craigslist. I'd like to recoup my materials costs.

Photo #1. The "D" cell battery is for scale. Plywood gussets (each side) and 2x4 bearing surface installed. After jacking and repair the truss was sitting about 1/8" proud of the wall top plate. The C clamps will be in place for a number of weeks helping everything to migrate where it needs to be.

Photo #2. The fascia end of the repair.

Photo #3. How it looks from floor level on the other side.

[fyidiy]

Today I received the final structural repair building inspection. I still have an electrical permit open due to modifications and additions since I already had things "opened up".

Nice to have this *huge* milestone crossed.