Sagging walls and floor

RANDY8700

I am trying to remodel a old house that was built in 1910most every thing is made with ruff sawn oak lumber any way one upstairs bedroom is sitting with one wasll over the middle or the downstairs living room and the other end wall halfway over the downstairs bedroom with no walls under either one that goes all the way to the floor.nothing to hold them up really so they have saged have any ideas how to fix the sag in walls and the floor

Just Bill

Old and sagging are two words often associated with houses. It could be due to time, poor construction, or all the above. You need to have someone, with knowledge of sturcture, look the place over. Too difficult to diagnose from this computer.

Daniel Holzman

You need to start by preparing a scaled diagram of your framing system. You need to determine the load on your joists, their span, their method of support, and their exact dimensions. You need to determine the modulus of the wood, which usually means making an intelligent guess as to species and grade. Once you have done all this, you can determine the amount of sag which would have been expected due to loading over the years. If the joists are strong enough, but have simply deflected due to natural deflection caused by long term loading, you may want to live with the "problem".

If the amount of deflection is intolerable, there are numerous alternatives for stiffening the floor system, some of which are difficult and expensive. You may need to consult an expert at that point to evaluate the best means forward. As Bill noted, attempting to divine the best method over the internet without detailed information is not very productive.

Ron6519

It's very hard to overcome 100 years of sagging. That wood now has a "memory" of position. I'd have someone check the structure to make sure the house is stable and sound.
You might need to live with the houses quirks unless you want to spend a great deal of money correcting them.
As previously suggested, have someone check out the house.

__________________
Ron
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
B. Franklin 1759

RANDY8700

randy8700@wildblue.net

i was afraid you were going to say i needed help and your right i will get someone to look at my sagging walls that knows a little more than i do thanks guys

mnp13

Are the walls in their original positions or have they been moved by previous owners?

__________________
Michelle

Fixing the re-muddling one room at a time...

woodworkbykirk

ive seen this sorta thing a few times.. first house i ever worked on was built in 1892, then around the 50's a bearing wall was removed.. the floor had a 2 1/2" sag in it.. had to have a engineer spec a solution.. we had to install a beam at the height of the joists to stop any further sag and then shim the ceiling so it would be level for the new drywall going up.

then on another house the same sort of situation,, actually on the exact same street only the house was 65 yrs old, we were able to jack the floor up back into level without any issues.

chrisBC

I've seen some old houses with walls and floors out by a few inches within a room. When every exterior wall is like this, and every floor, that could be a very involved job to fix everything, if even possible without pretty well rebuilding the house. Hard to say the extent and structural integrity without any details or pics.

I agree you should have someone look at it. If everything is structurally sound, I would live with it, or make comprimises. You may be better off shimming a wall or floor true in the real bad areas when redoing it, IE before you throw on drywall or lay a floor, rather than attempting to rebuild or strengthen the structure, assuming everything is sound.

At a certain point you don't want to throw in way more money than you will ever get out of it.

framingrailman

While I cannot speak directly to your job, I have recently done a similar job. In my situation I suspect joists were installed "green" and deflected from their original straightness, from day one of installation. We installed a MVL beam, posts and additional footings. In the installation of mid-span beam we actually had to cut old joists above the beam to allow us to jack it up to proper level. The cuts were only about 75% of the way leaving bottom undisturbed. We then put gussets on cuts.

RANDY8700

randy8700@wildblue.net
thank you for your time im going to have a guy look at this room 2mrow to see what i need to do i have all th downstairs finished and both bathrooms and part of the upstairs rooms done guess i saved the worst for last