hello I'm new here - what would you do?

[Sal]

Hello
we have just bought and moved into a house which is about 350-400 years old, and falling down in various places
All of the upstairs rooms have bouncy floors, and one of the bedrooms is particularly bad. On pulling back the carpet and lifting the unsuitable chipboard, we find ancient beetle eaten beams, supplemented with newer, but not big enough for the job, pine beams. clearly it needs rejoisting. The problem is the ceiling height downstairs is fairly low, and we don't want to go down any further - besides which, the ceiling is already at the top of the window. So we have to go up to accomodate the right joist sizes. There is also a substantial slope in the floor (charm we call it...). If we make the floor level whilst we are doing the work - it will mean a step into the room, and a cast iron fireplace would have to be moved. Would you level the floor while you were re doing it? or would you rebuilt keeping the slope?

I would appreiciate any opinions!

 

[Nemesis]

In a historic building I'd do what is sound conservation - repair not replace and I'd not be over concerned with bouncing floors, which sound as though some support work has been done anyhow. It may be possible to add more but it may not be required. Putting everything in a skip and radically altering is NOT what to do!

Leave well alone and intervene as little as possible - conserve the historic fabric. Otherwise you may as well have bought a Barratt box. We are only custodians etc etc...



Is the building listed?

And I'd join SPAB asap and read all you can and leave the building well alone until you understand period buildings.

http://www.spab.org.uk

 

[Lime]

I'm in complete agreement with Nemesis.

While the joists may be old and damaged they are part of the fabric of the house and have held up the floor for some considerable time.
Removing them would be inappropriate.

 

[monkey writer]

congratulations on your new home! You are very lucky, but with that comes responsibility. The quirks like the sloping floor are what makes an old home like yours so special and they must be protected.

 

[Sal]

no the building is not listed.

the original joists are beetle dust, and have clearly given up holding up the fabric of the building some time ago - particularly as whoever put in the 'reinforcements', cut through the old joists as they went along. The 'reinforcements' are modern and woefully inadequate, and this is not just a bouncy floor, all my floors are bouncy - this one is dangerous. I will be replacing as I don't think there is any historic interest in non-floor grade 1/2" chipboard.

Accepting that I will be replacing the floor, would you make it level, or reinstate the slope?

 

[middi]

Hello,

You have just described the typical 300/500 year old house, my guess is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it and I would advise you to love it and live with it as it is.

Nevertheless if you are uncertain and worried about its structural strength, the best thing to do to put your mind at rest, is to ask a surveyor that deals with historical buildings to look at it.

" Straightening" and " leveling" an old building is costly and not necessary if the character is to be preserved.

 

[Sal]

congratulations on your new home! You are very lucky, but with that comes responsibility. The quirks like the sloping floor are what makes an old home like yours so special and they must be protected.

thanks! yes I think we are very lucky, although we are now also very broke. Yup, we realised we were taking on a responsibility as well as a home. I like the quirks, there is not a right angle in the whole place!, (although some of the quirks like the damp and beetles are tedious. )
Keeping the slope is keeping the character, as you say. i just cannot help feeling that putting in a slope on purpose is a bit odd, but then again, if what we are doing is repairing the existing floor.. it makes more sense.

 

[Sal]

Nevertheless if you are uncertain and worried about its structural strength, the best thing to do to put your mind at rest, is to ask a surveyor that deals with historical buildings to look at it.

" Straightening" and " leveling" an old building is costly and not necessary if the character is to be preserved.

thanks for your reply. Don't fear - I don't intent to straighten the house out! Our surveyor (who I admit is not a specialist in historic buildings, however the sheer number of period buildings in this area must lend some experience) did say this floor would need replacing.

 

[Nemesis]

Oh dear!

Maybe the chipboard - but I'd seriously consider some extra strengthening joists and leave the heights etc well alone. You may encounter all manner of building regulations problems too if you replace not repair.

I'd be wary of your surveyor too - if he has no expertise in historic buildings that's not good. Experience isn't expertise.

 

[thiambal]

Do not assume that a prevelance of old buildings gives your surveyor any expertise. Our town has approx 70% victorian or earlier housing stock and our surveyor still recommended ripping out perfectly good sash windows (with not a trace of rot) and putting in UPVC and along with a host of other terrible suggestions which we have promptly ignored.

 

[EmmaT]

I'm by no means an expert on building restoration/repair, but I can sympathise on bouncy floors.

Our house is a lot younger than yours - only just over 150 years old - but we've just had to deal with bouncy floors and I thought I'd share some experiences. I don't know if you know when the newer pine joists were fitted, but our bounce was partly caused by the original Victorian pine joist being under 1" wide on some. Plus two that had seriously bowed over the years. Concern was that bed and occupants would rather suddenly end up in living room one night without passing the stairs.

Carpenter 1 suggested fully rejoisting, removing wood that supported joist on wall (original bits of tree complete with bark!), and inserting giant steel cross beam in living room below (existing ceiling height of only just over 6'). Obviously he was sent packing.

Carpenter 2 (striking resemblance to Kenny Rogers) has recently finished fantastic job of adding some discreet cross supports between the joists, and some additional supporting joist alongside those originals that were bowed, removing chipboard and replacing with some slightly less worm riddled floorboards. While this light touch certainly hasn't got rid of all the bounce, it's dampened it more than enough, and dealt with any issues of collapse, without seriously changing the existing structure of the floor. Not sure how it would work with slope though, but sure that good carpenter would be able to work around that?

 

[Sal]

Oh dear!

Maybe the chipboard - but I'd seriously consider some extra strengthening joists and leave the heights etc well alone. You may encounter all manner of building regulations problems too if you replace not repair.

I'd be wary of your surveyor too - if he has no expertise in historic buildings that's not good. Experience isn't expertise.

ok - I'm seriously considering it. been rummaging under the chipboard some more, and now pondering adding some more of the same woefully inadequate pine joists, same size etc, perhaps doubling up, thus the ceiling and floor heights, not to mention the charming slope and cast iron fireplace would all be exactly the same - presumably this is what you mean.

So how would this repair be seen in building regs terms? these joists don't appear on the lovely room span to joist size tables... please explain more re repairs and replacements and building regs.

 

[Sal]

and our surveyor still recommended ripping out perfectly good sash windows (with not a trace of rot) and putting in UPVC and along with a host of other terrible suggestions which we have promptly ignored.

blimey . glad you ignored him.
RE the surveyor - to be fair to ours, he was exactly what it says on the tin, we took a rounded view to taking on a period property - particularly one where the problems were blatant, and had decided this was the place we would be buying whatever.. perhaps naive? but when you fall in love with a place... he is an every day sort of surveyor, but with enough knowledge of period property not to make UPV type suggestions.
We figured we would (may) spend the money on expert advice as we tackled each problem. and even then i know that there can be a variety of opinions etc

 

[Nemesis]

Actually - I would suggest that anyone with real expertise with regard to historic buildings would agree with repair not replace.

Maybe an everyday sort of surveyor has little real expertise of historic buildings, and when the historic fabric is gone it's gone..

RICS Conservation Group maybe has some people you can contact?



Ask your surveyor what qualifies him to survey historic buildings.

 

[NT]

You havent so far told us the all important joist specs: height, width, spacing, span. Without any of those its hard to get a clear and accurate answer.

Re stiffening and strengthening, these can always be done without any need to depen the floor structure, so theres no need to cause yourself a mass of extra work expense and trouble.


NT

 

[Sal]

You havent so far told us the all important joist specs: height, width, spacing, span. Without any of those its hard to get a clear and accurate answer.

Re stiffening and strengthening, these can always be done without any need to depen the floor structure, so theres no need to cause yourself a mass of extra work expense and trouble.


NT

the room tapers but at its widest edge is 4.1m. Currently in addition to the orginal looking beams that have been cut, there are extra 4x3 pieces spaced at 600mm intervals (mixing imperial and metric as we go) - these are not fixed to any wall plate - merely laid across the span. the ceiling downstairs appears to be held up with will power and woodchip paper - the plaster and lathe are attached to the cut beams

Sal

 

[NT]

You havent so far told us the all important joist specs: height, width, spacing, span. Without any of those its hard to get a clear and accurate answer.

Re stiffening and strengthening, these can always be done without any need to depen the floor structure, so theres no need to cause yourself a mass of extra work expense and trouble.


NT

the room tapers but at its widest edge is 4.1m. Currently in addition to the orginal looking beams that have been cut, there are extra 4x3 pieces spaced at 600mm intervals (mixing imperial and metric as we go) - these are not fixed to any wall plate - merely laid across the span. the ceiling downstairs appears to be held up with will power and woodchip paper - the plaster and lathe are attached to the cut beams

Sal

I cant really help if you cant give the key dimensions. Sorry.


NT

 

[Sal]

ok - thought I had given all the dimensions.. whats missing?

 

[NT]

The height, width, spacing, and span of the floor joists. You'll generally need to lift a bit of floor to measure them.

NT

 

[Sal]

[the room tapers but at its widest edge is 4.1m. Currently in addition to the orginal looking beams that have been cut, there are extra 4x3 pieces spaced at 600mm intervals (mixing imperial and metric as we go) - these are not fixed to any wall plate - merely laid across the span. the ceiling downstairs appears to be held up with will power and woodchip paper - the plaster and lathe are attached to the cut beams

Sal

so thats the span at 4.1m the 'joists' that are doing anything are 4x3" (thats 4" heigh 3" wide...) spaced at 600mm intervals. as i said.