pier and beam and floor joist repair and leveling

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The wall carries the the floor upstairs and most ot the weight of the stairs is hung from the ceiling joist at the corner on the right. If the wall is in good shape on the left I would put a double 2x10 beam against the ceiling the legth of this wall support the left down to good floor joist and jack up the right side, using good floor joists on the right. That would lift the ceiling, the wall and the stairs all together. Once you have it up, if the beam is below the wall add solid blocking to the beam, if the beam isn't below the add a double floor joist blocking between the joists with hangers to carry the weight of the corner.
 
I put a 2x8 across the studs like you mentioned just for some temp support until i think of which way to persue the job. Thanks for the help. Nealtw can you explain that a little more. Im not quite getting the grasp of it?


heres a pic of the wall when there was no drywall on it. You can see how the ceiling/2nd floor joists end right on that wall.They done make it to the outside wall of the house here due to the staircase. Whoever made this wall back in the day did a really crappy job. I know there should have been a header over the microwave opening too. putting that opening there was not to smart as important as this wall is.


Also before this contractor screwed up my house we use to have a arched wall in front of the bad wall. He told us the arch wall was not a load bearing wall before he removed it but i think it may have been a support wall . In the pic below it shows the arch wall. To get a idea of where it is corresponding to the bad wall in question . the kitchen cabinets on the right are on the new wall i just built and more to the right out of the pic is the bad wall in question.

Reason i think it may have been a supporting wall also is that 1 its perpendicular to the joists,2 there is cross bracing on the ceiling over where it was and 3, when walking upstairs there is a hallway and wall running to the front of the house(bedrooms on the other side of the wall however that wall looks to be directly over where the arch wall was and then above the wall upstairs is the attic which has center studs to the roof running almost right over that wall too.

What do you guys think? He said the arch wall had no pressure on it but i cant really take his word for it considering he couldnt do anything right.



 
The bridging above the wall. Who knows why in an older house but today, the are installed in the center of the run when the run is more than 7 ft between bearing walls. That would say it was not a load bearing wall. If the whole wall was load bearing it would have solid bearing to the foundation or a beam of some sorts below to support it and the would have had a header built into the arch.
There are times that you have a single bearing point that carries a load, but that would be 2 or 3 studs nailed together in the wall with the load extending down to the foundation. Even a non bearing wall can take some bounce out of the floor up stairs. I hope that helps.

Back to the stair case wall, this is a whole lot easier if you can walk around a house and say look at or that but lets try again.
The first photo in your last post is worth looking at.
The straght run of stairs stop at the corner which is the sinking stud in question, so there should be like a double 2x8 running from that stud to the far wall of the stair case, then you have a pie shaped stair with like a 2x8 running from that stud to the back wall on an angle. Then you have a beam or another tread that lands on top of the same stud. That last beam or stair raiser is supporting all the floor joists above that have to end there. In short you have a pretty good sized point load on the corner.
As guyrod suggested you only have to raise the corner but I didn't like the lag bolt idea because we don't know what the load is, so sizing the lag bolts could be tricky at best and dangerous if you get it wrong. But now that I have seen more of the stairs to the right I would like to see what behind the drywall at the corner of the pie shaped stair and the top stair of the straight run and the area around the microwave hole
At one time there may have been a load bearing wall from the corner to over by the window and someone may have taken out to much structure for the hole.
 
Are there any architectural plans for this job?

Inspections?

The build out on these beams looks like 3:1 or triple the original weight. I'm sure you will find some helpful answers on a forum but is what I'm looking at going to pass inspection or up to code when it is finished?
Did the original contractor have permits?
Why do so many beams need to be lifted? What is the shape of the supporting foundation. Has that been addressed?
 
nealtw said:
The bridging above the wall. Who knows why in an older house but today, the are installed in the center of the run when the run is more than 7 ft between bearing walls. That would say it was not a load bearing wall. If the whole wall was load bearing it would have solid bearing to the foundation or a beam of some sorts below to support it and the would have had a header built into the arch.
There are times that you have a single bearing point that carries a load, but that would be 2 or 3 studs nailed together in the wall with the load extending down to the foundation. Even a non bearing wall can take some bounce out of the floor up stairs. I hope that helps.

Back to the stair case wall, this is a whole lot easier if you can walk around a house and say look at or that but lets try again.
The first photo in your last post is worth looking at.
The straght run of stairs stop at the corner which is the sinking stud in question, so there should be like a double 2x8 running from that stud to the far wall of the stair case, then you have a pie shaped stair with like a 2x8 running from that stud to the back wall on an angle. Then you have a beam or another tread that lands on top of the same stud. That last beam or stair raiser is supporting all the floor joists above that have to end there. In short you have a pretty good sized point load on the corner.
As guyrod suggested you only have to raise the corner but I didn't like the lag bolt idea because we don't know what the load is, so sizing the lag bolts could be tricky at best and dangerous if you get it wrong. But now that I have seen more of the stairs to the right I would like to see what behind the drywall at the corner of the pie shaped stair and the top stair of the straight run and the area around the microwave hole
At one time there may have been a load bearing wall from the corner to over by the window and someone may have taken out to much structure for the hole.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I hired a structual engineer the other day to look everything over and give us a report. Well worth it. He is making his report to explain the shoddy work our contractor did as well as show the astructual problems and how it should be fixed etc. Basically he told us the same as you on how the wall should be fixed. Build a temp support wall in front and start rebuilding from the bottom up.etc. We also are getting a estimate from a contractor to do the wall.The structual engineer also said something doesnt look right with another wall which is bowing out from the outside so yesterday we took off the sheetrock there and found another mess even worse then the other bad wall. I will post pics in my next post.

PangioneDevelopers said:
Are there any architectural plans for this job?

Inspections?

The build out on these beams looks like 3:1 or triple the original weight. I'm sure you will find some helpful answers on a forum but is what I'm looking at going to pass inspection or up to code when it is finished?
Did the original contractor have permits?
Why do so many beams need to be lifted? What is the shape of the supporting foundation. Has that been addressed?
Click to expand...

No archetectual plans or inspections. We however did just get 2 days ago a structual engineer to come in a give us a report on everything. The SE said everything i have done so far looks excellent with the joist work ,resupporting cut wall studs and non load bearing wall i built however the stuff that our shoddy contractor did looks horrible and needs to be fixed. The original contractor did not pull permits as the city suspended needing permits due to hurricane sandy or anyway thats what the building dept told us. As far as the supporting foundation besides the contractor cutting all the wall studs off the sill beam which is mostly fixed by me already the foundation is now in pretty good shape. 2 walls however is not the case and needs some rebuilding. The piers on the foundaiion are solid ,center beam is solid and the 2 side sill beams are now solid too after one span of sill was replaced.
 
After the SE told us he thinks theres something wrong with the dining room wall since you can see the siding bowing out from the outside under the window we decided to remove the sheetrock on the wall to see what was going on . Sure enough we found a big mess. It looks like its about to collapse. Its sagging down badly on both sides of the window and the double 2x6 header acrosss the bottom of the window is actually bending very bad which is insane since thats not easy to do without tons of pressure. With both sides dropping bad and header bending theres also a triple stud in the middle of the window that is still solid it looks like which is holding the weight up it looks like causing it to bow outwards since it has nowhere to go. the bottom wall plates are also all broken and loose. Window itself is also bowing. This wall is much worse shape then the other wall.

Looks like a combination of things caused the problem. Between it looking like it was never framed correctly(studs on side of the window should have been a king stud and jack stud going down to some bearing ,they are not,.Also some rot, some cutting the contractor did of the wall studs etc causing the problem.

Question. How can this wall be fixed. This one looks a bit harder to fix. Its bad.







 
Just found this . Heres a pic of the same wall took a week before the contractor started. Wall looks fine here. Looks like the contractor did all that damage to the wall. Lawsuit ? We are already in the process of sueing him but this before and after pic says a lot. Expecially with the fact that he cut the wall studs on this wall off the sill beam and never replaced them.

 
Any advice on how to fix the wall above? I know it has to be reframed since it looks like it was originally built backwarrds. header should be on top and should have king and jack studs. But how do i do it ? There seems to be a lot of pressure on this wall considering the double 2x6 header under the window is bowing like crazy and iv never seen or heard of double 2x6's bending that much in the vertical orientation. Looks to me like the studs on the sides of the window caving in is whats causing the bending/bowing. Im kinda scared just from the weight on it so any advice on how to fix it is greatly appriciated. Id be a lot more comfortable with more minds of advice. Thanks
 
"But how do i do it ?"

It looks like you house is all rotten. Wood is not structurally sound when it is rotten, it also produces mold. The white in your picture looks like mold or paint.
You should gut the whole house, remove the rotten wood, replace it with new struture... then start from there. Once the whole house is opened up you can see what is going on.
 
A header is above the window, this stuff is below the window, so it is just filler. This window has been made bigger at some time you need to check the header above it. Above the window there should be a 2 ply header, today would be 2x10 supported each side with a jack stud and a king stud beside that. So when you have it open like you have you should see 2 studs on each side of the window with solid blocking right to the foundation. Your contractor didn't help this but the problem was already there. If the upstairs is platform framed as in the upstairs walls are built ontop of the floor then you can just build the temp wall, jack it up and reframe the window and wall. You should have your engineer come back and look at it and check you loads incase it needs more than a normal header.
 
Was the sill replaced on this wall? Either the walls are sinking or the studs under the window were jacked up. This is what happens when you try jacking up a house.
I think this wall needs to be redone from scratch. This means taking off the siding too. Once you take out studs and put in new ones you will need to nail the sheathing to the new studs. Sheathing is structural part of the house and with your house its needs all the strenght it can get.
First you need to determine if the wall needs to go up or the studs under the window needs to go down.
This is turning out to be a alot more than a DIY Project. I feel bad for you. The never ending project. Like neal said get that engineer back if he cant get there soon I would put up a temporary wall up asap just to be safe.
 
Heres some better pics . There is a double 2x6 header above the window as well. The top wall plate is a pretty big beam too. At first i thought the top beam was rotted but theres a bunch of crappy looking shims on it that make it look that way. Its actually pretty solid. The reason im thinking the wall is falling and bowing is because the contractor cut the wall studs off the sill beam and never put them back on. All except for the middle triple stud in the center of the window which is still solid on the sill but now holding all the weight and since it has nowhere to go its trying to push outward. I temporarily reinforced the studs by putting it back on the sill but this has to get fixed soon as winter is coming up and right now we have no floors ,walls open and no heat in .







 
The top of wall beam appears to have a join in the center of the window. My guess is the the three studs under the window used to be under the joint in those beams. the 2x6 header needs a stud under both sides that make it down to solid bearing, then you could rip all the junk out from under the window and rebuild it.
 
nealtw said:
The top of wall beam appears to have a join in the center of the window. My guess is the the three studs under the window used to be under the joint in those beams. the 2x6 header needs a stud under both sides that make it down to solid bearing, then you could rip all the junk out from under the window and rebuild it.
Click to expand...

so first i would build a temp wall about 2ft in front of the wall . What next? Should i remove the window? Then remove all the wood blocking the path of the new king and jack studs that will be put in down to the main bearing(sill beam)? Of course i will have to remove that bent header under the window . Thats what im probably most scared about. I have never seen a single 2x6 bend that much ,much less a double 2x6 . There must be a tremendous amount of weight on that double 2x6 right ? How should i go about removing that safetly?
 
If the window isn't pinched in the framing I would remove it first. If you lift a little weight with your temp wall you should be able to take it al out without much problem. There must be a lump of something under those three studs for them to be still pushing up like that??
 
I have been waiting for a contractor to come back with the estimate to do the two walls .Wont know if im gonna tackle it myself until i hear back.
PangioneDevelopers if you do work in my area (queens ny) and are licenced i wouldnt mind you PM'ing me with a estimate for the two walls.

While im waiting i have been sistering more floor joists . i havent sistered the two joists directly under the microwave wall in the kitchen yet.I skipped those for now since im afraid to do them and cause they have that red support blocking i put under the cracked microwave wall screwed to them. I also found the shoddy contractor cut those original 2x10 joists off the sill beam and are now only on the sill by a 2ft long 2x4 screwed to the original 2x10 joist.
 
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