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sagging floors in 1908 stuccoFrom: martin_leys@instinet.com
Category: Flooring
Remote Name: 170.16.15.231
Date: 25 Feb 2002
Time: 01:37 PM
CommentsI recently bought a 1908 stucco in New Jersey(on a gentle hill with good drainage).
After taking up the carpets I noticed some sagging in the second floor master bedroom floor - which is 23ft by 15ft with no support in the middle. The bedroom ceiling is similar. There is probably no more than 1 inch of sag from the side of the room to the middle but with the newly polished floors it really stands out.
Adding to the fun is - if you can imagine - a wooden canopy attached to the ceiling about 5ft by 7ft (imagine a four poster bed with a wooden canopy, only there are no floor to ceiling legs to support the canopy), which was installed about 30 years ago and cut to fit the curve in the ceiling. There are no cracks in the ceiling.
So on the one hand nothing is moving or getting worse, but on the other hand the house was no older than 63 years when it had this sag.
It is almost as if the house settled around the chimney/central core at a faster rate than the core. There is a lsight incline to the center of the house form the outside walls all round but then it rises up a bit to the center.
Questions are:
how concerned should I be ?
what causes the sag ?
if it is this old but settled should I tinker with it ?
how hard would it be to rebeam the ceiing (for a solo contractor) - and how expensive, and would it make more sense to rebeam on the short aspect of the room - ie a serices of 15 ft beams across rather than 23 ft beams along ?
the living room floor beneath the bedroom has a little curve to it but is really not noticaeable - would I be better servde lifting the floor boards in the bedroom and using furring strips to flatten out the undulations - or rebeam also.
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