Since Catt posted his. . .
I'm fixing (well, correcting?) a sagging floor. Our house in Northern Michigan has a crawl space, with the access panel to the space in the laundry room. As seen in this picture.
The floor joists run from a steel i-beam running the length of the house (unseen, but to the left in the picture), to the foundation (you can see the foundation top plate in the picture on the right, under the wall). So the boards that are supporting the house are running from the beam down the center, to the foundation. Well, you know what happens to the joists when you cut them to make an access space? They sag. Because, well, there's nothing holding them up any more. Ahh the building code enforcement of northern Michigan. . . . So, after 35 years of not being supporting, those two joists warped downward by 1.25 inches. Pulling other joists down with them. The sag continues out the back of the laundry room (that's the picture) and into the dining room. However, the sag in those rooms is not really noticeable. About 3/8 to 1/4 inch, to level again after a couple feet. But when you walked into the laundry room, the floor dropping to the left was VERY noticeable, annoying, and disconcerting. The only thing keeping the joists from just falling to the floor in the crawl is the fact that the sub floor was nailed to them, thus holding them up.
To start, I installed two support poles under each unsupported joists. At first, I'm thinking "I'll just crank these supports up, and lift the floor back up. Just as I've got the large wrench attached to the bolt that raises the support, it occurred to me that I'm not going to be able to just 'bend' these boards back straight. They are warped. I'm just going to lift these bent board up in the air creating a high spot more towards the center of the house. Not a fix, and the drywall certainly won't like that. So, I stop at really tight and supporting, but not lifting.
After considering a slew of options to correct the issue, I settle on creating 4' shims to level this room out. I also move the hatch opening closer to the front of the room to allow the bigger washer/dryer unit to fit. As is, the washer/dryer wouldn't fit because they are deeper than the old and overlap the hatch.
And, with the new sub floor installed.
That was all done yesterday. Today, I moved the light switch to make room for a shelving unit and installed the new light fixture. My wife painted the ceiling and walls. Tomorrow, the flooring, floor trim, and washer/dryer go back in. It was decided to re-install the old washer/dryer and save the newer ones for the house we are going to build (bought a lot last year closer to the lake). This house is basically our 4 year vacation/flip house.
Will update tomorrow night.
My 4th of July project
My 4th of July project
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