A homeowners UGH! moment...

[shoot-straight]

just a rant, vent, whatever you want to call it.

house was built about 8 years ago. contractor died about 5 years ago. since then i have spent maybe 25k on the thing fixing issues that were done poorly, not to code and just plain half-ass. got a good contractor lined up (and some money saved up) to do something that needs to be addressed- a sagging ridge pole. my contractor didnt follow the plans and use double LVL's. just a single. the LVL has sagged and my front wall of the house is 2" out of plumb at the worst point. to complicate matters the room has catherdral cielings, and very little room to access the beam. we had planned to go in from the gable end and slide in 2 new LVL's to support the current one. add some insulation and bracing and it would be done. well, contractor shows up with crew, cuts into house to find out there is not enough room to do it as planned.....

plan b. drop ceiling.... then reinfiorce from below.... thats the UGH moment. estimate now more than doubled AND my house is going to be trashed. not to mention the inside will be open for a day or two to my attic. the estimate may triple if we have the drywaller and painter fix cracks and imperfections while he is there and the house is prepped for it. it certainly makes sense to do it now. have to see if the pocketbook will withstand it though.

thanks for the opportunity to vent.

 

[jharkin]

I feel for ya... One of the reasons I like old houses. I tend to spend more time fixing bad renovations from the 1980s than the original work from the 1800s!

 

[bmblank]

That's why I built mine myself. Short of the concrete floors for the basement and garage, these two hands (along with wife and immediate family) did it.

 

[shoot-straight]

while i couldnt build a house myself, i have a burning desire to build another house. if that makes sense. man, would i change things.

 

[bmblank]

Has I not yet built a house, I would do it. Having built one, I would not do it again.
The work itself isn't all that difficult, but all the figuring out and planning is killer.

 

[vinny11950]

Sorry to hear, Shoot. Really sucks.

Some contractors don't care about the owner down the line - they cut corners on some of the most important things because they don't suffer the consequences.

Good luck.

 

[gzecc]

I am a small contractor. I have a phone full of pictures of amazing things I've seen over the past few years. Generally speaking, you get the contractor you pay for. Wasn't this building inspected?

 

[Hogwildz]

The other option is to take enough roofing off to take enough roof decking off near the top to access the area, slide the new ridge pole in from the side underneath the existing, then re-deck and roof.
Really only possible with shingles.
The ridge pole is to support the roof rafters, if the front wall is sagging, you have other issues. The ridge pole does not support the front wall.

 

[shoot-straight]

I am a small contractor. I have a phone full of pictures of amazing things I've seen over the past few years. Generally speaking, you get the contractor you pay for. Wasn't this building inspected?

yep, sure was inspected. im waiting for the day an inspector shows up and fines me for an unpermitted dog kennel or something stupid. the inspector that did my house either didnt care, didnt even look, or was paid not to look or care.

 

[vinny11950]

I am a small contractor. I have a phone full of pictures of amazing things I've seen over the past few years. Generally speaking, you get the contractor you pay for. Wasn't this building inspected?

it is hard to find reliable contractors no matter what you pay. especially with big projects it kinda of is like marriage - you are stuck with them.

 

[shoot-straight]

The other option is to take enough roofing off to take enough roof decking off near the top to access the area, slide the new ridge pole in from the side underneath the existing, then re-deck and roof.
Really only possible with shingles.
The ridge pole is to support the roof rafters, if the front wall is sagging, you have other issues. The ridge pole does not support the front wall.

that was an idea as well, but is even more invasive. would need to build sevral temporary walls to support.

i think you are misunderstanding. the vaulted/catherdral ceilings make the ridge pole the issue. if it sags, the rafters(which are also [part of my roof and ceilings) squat down, pushing the top of the front wall out. hope that makes sense. the bottom of the front wall isnt bowed, its bowed at the top, and it bowes the most in the middle of the room of course, where its furthest from reinforcement. along with the new LVLs, they are lowering the ceiling a few feet with collar ties. while collar ties do not prevent ridge sag, they will stiffen the structure overall in my opinion.

found a pic that shows my predicament.

 

[Frozen Canuck]

Yes, you may just be looking at the tip of the iceberg here. As you say the house is 8 years old & is demonstrating what I would call major structural issues. Before you proceed I would suggest calling in someone who can give you a better picture of the total. Consulting engineering firm or if that's not possible a contractor that you know & trust that has an excellent track record. Off the cuff you are looking at some demo to expose areas so a correct determination can be made, I would also want access to your basement/crawlspace to determine why the front wall is sagging. Perhaps unsupported point loads, in any case the sags are happening for a reason, you need to find out what the reason(s) are & then develop a plan to address them correctly. EDIT you said bowed out of plumb from ridge sag. One thing you can do to help yourself in the meantime is remove as much snow as possible from the roof, extra load on there is not your friend.

As an aside, here the home inspector would be on the hook for this is they failed to mention this & it's consequences to you in your report (assuming you had a home inspection prior to purchase). Here currently home inspectors have an unlimited amount $$$ & time of liability on their inspections, as well as a lot of other prerequisites & continuing educational requirements & a minimum of 3 million $ worth of E&O (errors & ommissions insurance as well as liability insurance).

Me I am just hoping the province does the same with contractors. That should get a lot to exit stage right. Better for the industry IMO & long overdue. Currently anyone can hang up a shingle & call themselves a builder. Bad for the industry & bad for buyers who largely go in on blind hope that it was built right & all to often get screwed.

 

[gzecc]

it is hard to find reliable contractors no matter what you pay. especially with big projects it kinda of is like marriage - you are stuck with them.

I disagree, I know quite a few. You can tell after a few hours of working with or for them if they are good.

 

[gzecc]

I suggest you go on Home Advisor.com . List your request under "framing repair". You will get up to 3 licensed and insured contractors to respond. You can review past customer/client responses before you hire or make an appointment with anyone with this service.

 

[jharkin]

I disagree, I know quite a few. You can tell after a few hours of working with or for them if they are good.

+1. There are good guys out there, you just have to look. Probablem is there are a lot of bad apples out there to makea quick buck who underbid, people who shop on price only get suckered in then gives the whole trade a bad name.

My dad was a finish carpenter for years and lost many a job to low bidders who do crap work. He wouldnt lower his standards and would explain to prospects why he was charging a higher rate and the better quality of materials it was buying them but too many people see nothing but the bottom line $ cost. Once and a while one of them would come back to him to finsh the low bidders botched job.... but not often...

Now he has given up the game and works part time at the orange box

 

[shoot-straight]

it was a major structual deficiency, as i said, they used only one LVL instead of 2 laminated together. after this it will have 3.

new contractor is highly respected in the area. not cheap either.

 

[Beer Belly]

Our house was built in 1978.....developer built hundreds of houses in our area, very disappointed in the quality, everything seems to be up to code for that period, but by my standards, would fail miserably. We did own a home built in 1953....bought it from original owner, so the house was as it was built.....that house was strong as heck, solid, and felt it. My biggest beef with the newer (1978) house is the floor joist....2x8, 16 on center....a lot of bounce.....even our 14 lbs. dog walking by you makes the floor flex.....thinking of Blocking the Joist, or Laminating with 1/2 Plywood. Side note: We bought this house sight unseen, as it had big upgrades, and in a sought after development.....

 

[Warm_in_NH]

Option B. Pull the wall back in, install some sort of custom / exposed / decorative collar tie to hold the two plates together if it's an open room.

Structural ridges are used when the roof isn't a triangle. The bottom cord of the triangle completes the structural integrity of it. So option B would be collar ties of some sort.

We did it on a rehab that my buddy bought. Had a local steel shop fabricate the equivalent of a giant turn buckle and steel plates to attach it to the top plates of the wall. Got em close w come along and jacks under the ridge, installed turn buckles and fine tuned with them. A painted flat black. Cost effective, worked great, looks cool.

while collar ties do not prevent ridge sag, they will stiffen the structure overall in my opinion.

Just FYI, they most certainly do when placed at the right height and location. That's their sole job. Many old houses have no ridge pole at all as if it wasn't needed they didn't waste the lumber on it.

 

[shoot-straight]

Ties in the upper 1/3 are collar ties, bottom third are rafter ties. Everything I have read says that collar ties are innefective at preventing ridge sag and wall spread.

http://www.nachi.org/collar-rafter-ties.htm

Nevertheless after the triple lvl goes in and the ridge is fully supported we are putting them in. As I said it will help with overall stiffness of the structure and will lower the ceiling some.making it look better.

Discussions about moving walls back into plumb were had. Some attempts will be made to do so, but that can cause more damage to my house overall. I will take what I can get without causing a bunch of further damage.

 

[Hogwildz]

Deal with the ridge and also push the wall back where it should be. A weak link in any structure is just that, and will affect the rest of the structure to some degree.

 

[Ehouse]

Sounds like you know what you're going to do, but there are a couple other options. You could put in 3 (just one if the space is small enough) decorative rafter ties with king posts in free air making trusses. You could build a centered partition wall or beam lattice in the plane of the rafters for a bearing wall transferring the load to the foundation. You could turn the top plate on each wall into a load bearing beam in the horizontal plane. In any case you'll need to pull the walls into plumb first or the rafters will be ripped from the top plate when you straighten the ridge.

 

[shoot-straight]

Top beam lifting won't by much. You are right right. You can't go up too much without pulling the wall in. The sag isn't really noticeable so this is more of a stabilization job. Drywall cracks were the sign of the problem, more than a visual sag. Additionally, we have a large covered porch h that is bowed out a bit too. Trying to make everything perfect will be too complicated and potentially destructive.

 

[Ehouse]

Top beam lifting won't by much. You are right right. You can't go up too much without pulling the wall in. The sag isn't really noticeable so this is more of a stabilization job. Drywall cracks were the sign of the problem, more than a visual sag. Additionally, we have a large covered porch h that is bowed out a bit too. Trying to make everything perfect will be too complicated and potentially destructive.

Just thought of another one. Glue/nail a bottom flange to the LVL if it hangs below the rafters.

 

[rwthomas1]

Consider adding steel to that lvl stack. That would make a Flitch beam out of it, I've used them and they work quite well adding a lot more strength without as much mass as more lvls. RT

 

[Bobbin]

My late FIL was an architect. He was all about following "code" to the point of over-building. My brother is a building inspector in MA. When I read posts like the OP's I get really pissed off. What the hell was the building inspector doing (or not doing!)? (on the tax payer's dime), and what the hell was the dip-_hit "builder" doing when he put up a building that wouldn't have passed code in my town when we built in 1991?? No one "caught" the oversight? gimme a break! Pass the buck and make some more excuses. Spare me.

I have nothing to offer in terms of "corrections", but I share your outrage. This kind of "oversight" affects everyone who pays taxes and home owner's insurance policies.