HillyBilly special lean to lea to temp wall

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kevindropboxx

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My house is a 1940's lean to. It was expanded for more space with additional lean to rooms. The house roof is like a v at one point where the lean to's join.

The kitchen was once a screened in porch and still has the 2x4 framing because it is weight bearing.

Here is a link to a lean to addition that looks like my kitchen.

http://www.hometips.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/lean-to-shed-construction-diagram.gif


The living room is a lean to in the opposite direction of the kitchen. Where they meet is a V and all of the water from the roof exits there. Now the header and the corner beam are rotten.

I want to build two temporary walls, get rid of the load bearing wall and replace the corner where the wood is rotten. I was thinking I would put in 16' LVL.

My question is how do I build a temporary wall on slanted roofs? Do I affix studs to the rafters with just a bottom plate? Build a wedge of some sort?

I cant get my brain around this construction.

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Could I build something like a temporary truss?
Should this be in the wall forum?
 
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Welcome to the site. For yopur temp wall place a 2x? plate on the ceiling and the floor cut the top of the stud on the same angle as the roof and nail them in place. If you have the drywall down you could forget the top plate and run the stud right under the rafter and the add a joiner block to the top side of the stud and the side of the rafter, then you know they will stay in place.
 
I'm having a real hard time picturing your place. I know of a lean-to as a three- sided structure, and your illustration helped a little. Could you post a picture or two??
 
I have taken some photos. It isn't easy for me to tell what is going on so I took a lot. The original house had a porch i think with a flat roof. Then an additional roof was built over it.

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The problem area. At some point a roof was leaking and the corner stud and top plate are rotten. They kept adding wood and nails. There must have been 20 nails in the corner stud. The top plate (I guess its called) for the old porch is rotten too at the end, so the old flat roof is going to fall down I think.

Any advice would be great. !

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Hillbilly Lean to House.jpg
 
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Kevin, I don't want to be mean but you haven't got much to work with here. And it looks like you have plenty wrong.
What is the end game here, just fix it up or go after structure to make it right? If it's structure we first have to look at what it is siting on.
 
Thanks Neal for the honesty. I inherited this old lake house and I think it has been sitting here empty for 25 years. The lake is receding.. I can't imagine the property value is going to skyrocket. But, I would hate to put in a kitchen only to find out the foundation is rotten. So foundation it is.

It's a pier and beam.. the beam is two 2x4's. The 2x4's are leaning a bit.

Framing.
If you are looking into the kitchen, on the left the corner stud is what I think is a major problem. It isn't easy to take photos to show you. I believe someone saw that it was rotting and started nailing things to it to keep it together. There were pieces of wood nailed everywhere as a patch. THEN the person built a roof over all of that..

So I know I at least need to replace the stud. The top plate resting on it is rotten in the same corner. I was thinking I would make two temp walls and get rid of the existing framing and replace it with a LVL beam.

The crazy two roof system that is going on and the slanted lean to roof in the living room have me scratching my head.

What a mess! The more I think about it the more confused I get.
 
My first house was an old farm house right up on Lake Erie it was a house built to be a house around 1880. They sold the farm off because of the attraction of the great lake to a lot of people to build their own cabins or cottages or just fishing shacks. They were for summer usage and built without any codes etc. much like your place. Over the years most of them were added to and some became year round homes even but they all suffer from the ground up. People keep pouring more and more cash into them.

To get your place up to code would likely cost more than buying something prefab and setting it on the property. I also know sometimes these old camps hold sentimental value and that is something hard to put a price on. If I had it and wanted to use it as a retreat I would do more of the same and patch it up with what I could find used and still make it a fun safe place. Anything rotted of course has to go and get filled back in at least with new and most likely doubled up. Figure out what is the foundation like Neal suggested and then make sure points of load find their way back to the foundation. After you get it feeling solid close it up, paint it up and enjoy.


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Looking at your photos a little more those two roofs that slope together and run down a valley seem to be a major problem area or one waiting to happen. Do you have any pics from back showing the whole building and those roofs? Did they just tar the heck out of that area or is it rubber or something like that?
 
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What it looks like to me is two small building moved close together and a kitchen built in between.
Are you living in it now and will this be a camp or a home?
 
I don't know if this place will ever be up to code. ;) Im living and working from here right now. It's free rent and I can try to bring it back to life.

The roof is newer than the stuff underneath. I think the stuff underneath once was a porch that became rotten. Someone built a new roof on top of the existing rot. They used it as support!

I shoveled a foot of leaves off of the roof and took photos, and I also took some photos of the foundation. The beam might need to be replaced. Its green.
 
As far as resale goes I dont think you can make this house buyable at least above land value without framing out a new roof. So if you planning on selling it ever be aware any money and effort you are putting into the interior you will probably not get back. So what Im say is refiance and go all out or do it as cheap as possible to make it livable.
 
I guess I wasn't being mean. Just do what you have to to make it livable, no extra money. Anything that you need advice on ,we will be glad to help
 
Thanks Neal. I don't know anything about selling houses. Unless the lakes start to rise I don't see myself putting any real money into the place. It is a nice place to write a book and get out of the big city. Relatives bought the kitchen cabinets. So far I have bought a tankless water heater, Romex, and breaker.

I know the kitchen has the old roof under the new roof and that there is a beam that is rotten. I need to figure out how to make a few temp walls so I can replace the beam.

The old roof is in the way! The new roof rests on the old rotten roof.

Do I buy a few jacks and replace the rotting beam outside before taking on the kitchen? Guyod is that what you meant by foundation?

Guyod You weren't being mean at all. My treehouse as a kid was built better than this place! This place is a hillbilly special. ;)

I'll try to pull some lights onto the old roof and take some photos. The roof doesn't leak. The rotten wood is from when the hillbilly lived here.

Thanks


Sent from my iPhone using Home Repair
 
(If) I am looking at the right place, you are talking about the beam above the green light fixture in the 4th photo in post #4.
Two thing to look at first, are the ceiling joists on the other side of the beam, hanging on this beam. Likely not but you want to be sure. then will the floor be strong enough to hold the extra weight of the roof. Extra wood on the floor to spread the load onto more joists or extra support under the floor to transfer the weight to the ground.
Once you have sorted that out a temp wall can be built with a stud cut to the angle of the rafter and a block nailed to the side and the rafter so everything stays put. One stud for each rafter.
 
On the bigger picture look at it this way you are living for very little cost there and you have very little invested. If you were paying rent what would it cost you for a place and maybe not as nice of a location? So if you were to invest every month what you would be paying in rent you will still be ahead of the game.

We just bought a short sale home for cash and not much of it that was in really deplorable shape. The idea being fix it up as best we could and not for resale and have cost free living as far as a payment after that. You are doing much the same.

You need to know your place is safe first off and then sound secondly. I see the rot issues not being caused by the roof over the roof but by a combination of the first roof maybe having started it before someone tried to fix it with the second roof and then and now the second roof needing some work and letting moisture in to get the decay started again. Getting all that stuff off the roof was a good start and after you get it shored up inside I would be back on that roof giving it a soft power wash and then a new coating of something. Looks like there are a few spots that could use the rolled roofing patched and others that would get by with a tar job.

The new place we bought has a detached garage that the roof is worse than yours and the long range plan will be some metal barn like roofing but as soon as the snow goes away here I plan on doing some rolled roofing and tar for now. I would rather spend the extra cash on the main house.

That valley on your place looks like the worst place and maybe some of the roofing guys will offer some advice on how to patch that up better than tar. I know people that have used the ice dam stuff in areas like that.

Are those live oaks I see growing around?
 
A dollar saved is a dollar earned. With taxes more like $1.30. So Im all for what your doing.

Your lucky there is no snow load. If you can walk on roof without alot of bounce i doubt it is in danger of falling down.
I would start by removing anything that is not load bearing from old roof. Then take a picture and use paint program to mark where the beam is. There is so much going on its hard to see what is going on without being there.
 
Sorry I screwed up your names. I was on the iPhone app and have the memory of a gnat.
Bud they are live oaks. :)

I think like all of you have said, what I need to do is to do as little as it takes to make it safe. I can live here and fix it up as I go.

The electric was replaced years ago, the water pipes are fine. It looks like the roof and foundation are the issues, anything else is cosmetic.

Guyod: The roof doesn’t bounce. I didn’t walk on the slopped part.

Bud: I think you are right about the roof. It will need a coat of something or ??? I don’t know what an ice damn is. Ill look it up.

I think since there is no gutter, water from maybe the entire house pours from the roof at that section and splashes everything. It really rains here. (I don’t know if a gutter could take all of the water.) I have watched the interior wall and even with the cracks in the siding it doesn’t get wet.

Im positive the kitchen once was a screened porch. The old roof must have slanted in such a way that the water ran down the corner stud. It became rotten. So the best solution is to leave it, add a bunch of nails and extra wood, then build a new room. ;)



NealTw: 4th photo post #4 is outside with a water hose and rotten beam. The beam is 2 2x4’s and It is under the part of the kitchen that needs to be replaced. I’m not sure how to jack the house up. There is dirt almost touching the beam along the house.

I guess I dig the dirt out from under the rotten beam so I can reach the floor joist. Then slowly jack each one up until I can pull out the beam and replace it.. with pressure treated wood? Do I put a jack at every floor joist?

I have taken some photos of the ceiling joists.. they are a work of art!


Ill read the previous posts again and make sure I didn’t miss any questions.
Thanks everyone.
 

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