Sagging Ceiling?

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gregoire

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My house was built on a crawl space in '95. Over the last 10 years, some interior doors have slowly become misaligned. Convinced the floor was settling, I finally crawled under the house, with a bunyip level(tube mostly filled with water ), and took careful measurements at all 10 piles. To my surprise, they are all almost dead level! I then checked the floor joist in the area where the problem is worse , and, it too is fine!
This house does have a large, unfinished upstairs, we have used as an attic. Is it possible the the ceiling is actually sagging and NOT the floor?
Any suggestions on how to tell? What can be done to correct it? One of the bedroom doors is significantly bowed.

Thanks,
Greg
 
To check the level-ness of the floor? I'm afraid that wouldn't work very well under the house. With 10 supporting pyles, and HVAC ducts, there's no line-of-sight.
 
The walls have turned from rectangles into parallelograms and the door misalignments indicate the angles of these shapes? A 1/4" gap for a 30" door means you're at 89.5 or 90.5 degrees instead 90 for the corners.
 
Last edited:
Wuzzat? said:
The walls have turned from rectangles into parallelograms and the door misalignments indicate the angles of these shapes? A 1/4" gap for a 30" door means you're at 89.5 or 90.5 degrees instead 90 for the corners.
Click to expand...

Yup, that's what's happening. Can a sagging ceiling even do this? I'm trying to post a pic of the door, but having problems with that.
 
If an 8.0000' stud leans 0.5 degrees from the vertical the ceiling will have dropped to 7.9997'. That can't be noticeable.
???
 
Try using a tight string just to see how far out it is,:)
 
Here's another.

I have two parallel non-load-bearing east/west aligned walls, each with a door.
The second door is about 10' w of the first.

The eastern-most door has the upper east corner gap larger. The other door has the western upper corner gap larger. I don't know yet what the other 10 doors have done.

It seems our whole 45 YO house has settled unevenly, and there are some small drywall cracks radiating from the door corners.
 
There isn't much more accurate than a water level, if you wanted to use a laser, you just set it up and measure from the line you get to the floor or ceiling.
If the house was built with an angle the doors would have been hung plumb so the fact that it is changing is something to worry about. What kind of siding and does the house have and what kind of sheeting is behind that?
 
After looking at four of my doors I recommend doing a "settling survey" in your house by using a framinq square to check each doorway. The hard part is figuring out what shape your house has now assumed.
 
Houses sheeted with shiplap instead of plywood should have an angle brace let into the studs, if that's not there, nothing will hold the house square and plumb.
 
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