We had to fix the structural beam between the kitchen and family room areas. When they added the first (of three) additions they had to open the old brick exterior wall of the original house. They had installed a large structural beam to support that exterior wall. Unfortunately, like many other things, it was not done right. They had not extended the beam far enough into the existing walls and had notched one end. This put undue weight on the middle of the beam and it had bowed at a knot. The whole wall was also slanted to the left which made the wall on the left 3" shorter than the wall on the right.
This is the culprit.
The room above the kitchen is going to be a playroom for the grandkids. First we had to remove the sheetrock on the inner wall and then all the up and down framing above the beam. This framing did not support the ceiling so it could be removed. It did however interfere with moving the wall and beam up 3" on the right. So we removed them.
From the room above looking down.
Our home teacher from Cedar Hills had a structural beam that he didn't use to build his deck that he gave to us to use. Nice!! Structural beams are expensive!! Perry then jacked up the original beam and placed some 2x4 pieces under the left hand side until it was level again. He then raised the sagging knot and lag bolted it into place. No more 3" difference. Then he built a new 2x4 wall on the left side and right side next to the existing wall. He placed the new beam on top. The walls on each side were not parallel so the new framed walls were placed parallel. We then had to place some shims between the two beams.
See the 2x4's under the back beam(lighter colored one).
See that white wall behind. It is the exterior wall brick. It had sheetrock glued and screwed into the brick. I had to scrape and pry all that sheetrock off so the new wall could be built.
The right had wall was also extended past my kitchenette and a door framed. This will eventually become my the new main floor bathroom.
Shimmed.
With the new beam in place we lag bolted the two together every 18 inches or so. Wallala!! New support beam. Straight!! About a month later, we re-framed the wall above it
NEXT: We needed to drop more sheetrock before we could replace our heating system. It is such a messy, dusty job.
Click here: Dropping Some Ceiling And this was one of the smaller drops.
We shoveled the insulation with a snow shovel into big contractor 55 gallon bags. There was no heat in this part of the house so we often wore gloves and coats as it was cold.
Another 16 bags of insulation and it is very compressed.
When Perry dropped the ceiling in our family room area, one piece came down and hit the gas line that was sticking up out of the floor. All of a sudden we could hear a chirping noise. I asked what is that and Perry said, "that is the gas line. Quick go shut the gas off." I had no idea where the gas shut off was or what to use to shut it off. Perry jumped down from the ladder, grabbed a wrench and hollered at me to open all the doors and windows quick. He soon got it shut off and we aired the house out. He soon capped the line again and we finished cleaning up insulation. We were so glad when all the sheet rock in the ceiling was down.
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