[Greenbuilding] Sure haz been quiet around here lately!

[Erin Rasmussen]

Ok, I'll try, but keep in mind that my specialty is computers, and the
building language is all new to me. 

The one story and only about 800square feet total, and the floor joists and
wall studs seem to be okay, but the roof support seems to be minimal, there
are only 3 roof trusses, and they seem like they are missing a lot of cross
bracing. There's a single board that runs from the middle one to the 'floor'
of the attic which I think is supposed to brace the truss but seems woefully
when I'm actually in the attic watching the stress on the building, if that
makes sense. Needless to say there is nothing in the way of hurricane clips
etc. We've had a few major wind storms (greater than 50 mile/hour winds) in
the last 50 or so years, and I'm wondering how the house survived them. 

In the crawlspace, I haven't checked well enough, but I think that the
connection between the house and the concrete foundation isn't very strong.
This certainly predates a lot of earthquake recommendations in the codes,
and technically I may not need the bolts to hold the walls to the masonry,
but I live in an earthquake area, and it seems like a good thing to add to
the 'to do' list. I also have beam that I needs a sister - some plumber in
the distant past cut through it to install a pipe. And there are no metal
straps to tie the foundation posts to the floor joists, which would be
normal, but worth considering. 

Let me know if that helps fill in the blanks a little bit.

Erin 

-----Original Message-----
From: greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org
[mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of RT
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 1:26 PM
To: Green Building
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Sure haz been quiet around here lately!

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:31:53 -0400, Erin Rasmussen <erin at trmiles.com>
wrote:

>
> I've got a 1950's tract house that I've been steadily working on all  
> summer,
> and when I was down adding plastic and sealing off the crawlspace, and
> adding insulation to the attic, I noticed that the framing of the  
> structure
> seems a little light.  I'm trying to figure out if there's some sort of  
> cost
> effective method of bringing more sturdiness and structural integrity to  
> the
> house.

Which components of the structure in particular seemed "a little light" ?

ie beams ? girders ? floor joists ? ceiling joists ? rafters ? sheathing
?  (and in identifying which of the above, providing an idea of what's
there (ie member cross section dimensions, span, loading etc) would help.


-- 
=== * ===
Rob Tom
Kanata, Ontario, Canada
< A r c h i L o g i c  at  Y a h o o  dot  CA >
(manually winnow the chaff from my edress if you hit REPLY)


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