That's irritating. The joists that support upstairs are rested inside gaps in the brickwork in other parts of the house but I guess a replacement of the joists would need to be done according to current code rather than simply imitating what was already there. Maybe I will just leave well alone and go with the companion studs you mentioned. I'd rather not be dealing with that, but it seems to make a horrible mess into something that's slightly less of a mess. It is an outside wall, made of concrete blocks. It can obviously support the weight of the floors upstairs, and indeed the joists that support the attic floor (the attic has high ceilings and would readily lend itself to conversion into finished living space) rest on the very tops of the walls. It's curious that they seem to have taken this shortcut in this part of the house, although I guess it's easier to rest an attic joist on top of a wall than it is to entirely remove and replace joists supporting an upstairs space. I'm still trying to figure out just how the house was laid out. I think the stairs from ground level to upstairs went along part of this wall, based on what looks like a bricked up window visible from the outside. I haven't yet pulled down that part of the interior wall (I probably should do that and find out just what's behind it, just didn't get to it earlier because of the drafts coming from that area). Thanks for your thoughts, particularly with regard to building code. Is that a national code that relates to joists in masonry?
There are varieties of Simpson connectors that will allow you to connect the joists to the " inside" of the block. These connectors then go through the block in such a way as to "hang" the floor and provide a pivot. They are expensive and require tons of work. The idea behind the codes is that if the floor should burn it will not take down the entire wall. And there should be some pivot between the connections in the case of seismic activity.
Stopping the entire house burning if the floor burns makes sense, if the walls are made of something flammable. But if the wall is made of concrete blocks it won't burn, will it?
No but the collapsing of the interior can break the exterior wall if the beams are merely wedged between the blocks, especially concrete blocks.
That makes more sense, I guess if the structural interior wall burns and the joists then collapse from the other end, the combined weight of upstairs isn't going to do the exterior wall much good. I think that the beams that I found resting in gaps in the wall were pushed far enough into the wall that they were supported but the gap above them was such that they could probably have rotated and slid out, had the building burned. I can't say I measured it all, and now the gaps are full of building foam so it's hard to measure how far back the beam actually went. Maybe whoever built the house (100+ years ago) was farsighted enough to think of that.
I've heard often that the wood simply shrank over time. Also, I have used rigid insulation 2" thick or thinner. Inexpensive and easy to cut. Polyurethane or similar. Great if its fitted snugly Oh, and concrete rots the wood.
Fitting snugly is the problem, when you've got gaps that vary from about 1/8" to about 1/2" around the beam it's hard to cut anything precisely to size. When leaving gaps means a draft coming through the gaps I need something that fills everything. How does concrete rot the wood? These beams have been resting on the concrete for 100 years.
I was refering to insulation for the wall with the narrow studs. I understand you are using expanding foam insulation for the joists. Wood invariably leaches moisture, however minutely, from concrete. Modern standards require a barrier between the two.
Ah.. that makes sense now. I thought you were talking about cutting little pieces off to fill the gaps in the concrete around the wood, and wondering what possible reason you'd have to do such a thing. I was wondering if I'd missed something fundamental, and I obviously did I've got rigid foam insulation. Polyisocyanurate, offering R13 in my 2" boards. Part of the trouble is that cutting for a snug fit is tricky when the studs aren't parallel and aren't entirely straight. It's also slightly tricky because the foam is slightly thicker than the studs, so I may end up salvaging some of my laths to shim the studs so they are thick enough to take my insulation panels. Then I can screw the drywall into the laths. Part of the reason I've been looking at just removing the existing studs and reframing the wall is to make sure I've got enough space to fit the insulation panels, and to make sure I'm working with studs that are parallel and straight. With what I have now I can cut something that mostly fits but small air gaps in places are inevitable. Maybe I'll just do the best I can and use silicone or caulking or something to fill the (small) gaps.
So our school's high school boys basketball team is in the provincial final for single A school group (we are pretty small). Final this afternoon.
Unfortunately, the other team did just that - they just kept hitting three-pointers all game long it seemed. Still, our boys came in ranked sixth and left with second place.
Basketball with the three point rule is line baseball with a designated hitter. A mere shadow of the GameAsItShouldBe(TM).
Just got back from the once-a-year downhill skiing. With two kids, one of which who had not downhill skied before today. That was an eye-watering experience for an hour or so, but he finally got his balance figured out.
Spent much of the morning burning my surplus pile of old laths, then went to the hardware store to get a new hose for my shop vac. Where I rigged up a dust separator I used a different hose. I realised the shop vac was losing suction and couldn't figure out why, and when I opened it up I found fine dust inside it, lining the filter and the innards of it. That shouldn't happen because I use HEPA filter bags, but then realised that the replacement hose I had been using (that I'd taken from another shop vac) wasn't making a proper seal, letting some of the dust out. So I cleared the dust out of the filter with a wire brush, then set about fitting a new hose with a longer attachment. With the pile of laths out of the way in the room I'm working on I could clean up much better, and the massively increased suction the shop vac helped a lot with that. I'd found another gap in the wall so mixed up a load of cement to fill it. It was big enough that I had hoped to use a concrete strip, but wasn't quite big enough to take one. So I just mixed two batches of cement and filled it the slow way. Hopefully I'll soon be in a place where I can fit some insulation panels, take the dust sheets off, and get the room at least kinda-sorta usable again. I'm still going to have to pull the ceiling down but it can wait until later.
Some days, this job can be a real mind and soul sucker. Constantly dealing with people in crisis, distressed, insecure, sometimes in trouble. Other days, I should have to pay to have as much fun. Today was one of those days. I have a business client who was in a romantic and business relationship with a lady who, shall we say, did not take it well when the "romantic" part of their relationship went bad. So, being the vengeful person that she appears to be, she started parading all over social media slandering him, and, to top it all off, made a police report and tried to have him arrested for allegedly "stealing" money and falsely representing that he was a part owner of the company. So, the court issued what is known as a "notice to show cause" for her to show up and tell the judge why he should be arrested and he gets to cross examine and present evidence (if it gets that far) as to why he should not be arrested. After about 10 minutes, the woman had absolutely made my case for me. The judge was asking her questions, and she was following the bread crumbs right into my Burmese tiger trap. The lady drove the judge nuts, and the judge has an excellend "BS Meter." When it was my turn to cross-examine her, I had documents, with her signature on them, demonstrating that everything she had just told the court was actually perjury. When I reached for my fourth document to smack her with, the judge said, "Mr. RabbiKnife, there's no need to continue. I am denying the application for an arrest warrarnt. Ms. Complaintant, listen to me. Listen very carefully. You have not done yourself any favors here today. I am not going to have this man arrested, and... listen to me, ma'am. You need to hire an attorney. If I know Mr. RabbiKnife, you are going to need one very soon. You need to be very careful in the things that you say and the actions you take. This matter is dismissed. You may all be excused." It wasn't a case of taking a knife to a gunfight. It was a case of taking a rubber chicken to Thunderdome.