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How to determine what is wrong with a sagging floor?From: jh1440@mail15.com
Category: Structural
Remote Name: 65.80.76.61
Date: 14 Oct 2003
Time: 01:04 PM
CommentsWe have a 1974 one-level cedar ranch house, on a crawlspace. In several places in the house, the floors seem to dip. This appears most often right to the side of the center line of the house, but there are a couple of other places as well.
I looked under the house, and found two central beams, made of 5 2x4's on end, running the length of the house. These seem to coorespond, mostly, with the walls of a central hallway, and are sitting on steel piers, which sit on concrete pads. The joists are notched to sit on top of the outside 2x4. The notch is cut farther then necessary in both directions, creating both horizontal and vertical slits at the notch.
Some of these joists have split at this notch cut. Others seem not to have split, but seem lower then required.
How do I tell what the cause(s) of the floor sagging is/are? From reading other posts, it seems as if it could be just related to the split joists. It could also be related to the foundation around the house sinking, and the central piers remaining steady. There could also be something else. In some places, it seems like the floor falls away from the central beam to the edge. In others, it seems like there is an immediate dip (1+ inches in the space of 2 feet), then it levels out. It seems to me that I need to figure out what is wrong as the first step in fixing the problem, or I could cause more problems then I solve.
If it is just sagging/split joists, I assume that the fix is to jack them up, and either sister additional joists on, or install a cross beam, supported on posts, to provide additional support to the existing joists?
There doesn't seem to be enough room vertically on the 2x4 beam to put proper joist hangers on. What is your opinion?
Thank you.
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