Insulating from the outside

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What I am trying to figure out, is about three questions. Are the ends of the joist sitting on the concrete or do they have to be supported in order to remove the bad timber. Or is the timber thick enough and enough left to machine away all the bad stuff and fix it up. From the inside it looks like there is a 2x? under the timber.
Drilling a hole thru the center will NOT weakin it, we shouldn't need the bigger hole now that you can see in from the basement.
Side note, the grayish powder on the shiplap in your first photo today and on the underside of the floor sheeting in your last photo looks like mold and will have to be looked at too.
 
I think the floor joists are on part of the foundation, there is only the walls on the timber. The picture( the last one) was one of two or three spots that were open, the rest ate bricked up and you cannot see yo the outside timber, I think the powder you are seeing is from the old insulation, but I will look into that a bit further to make sure it is not mold.
 
You can buy a test kit for any suspected mold. better to be safe, while you have it open.
Back to the brick, Is the brick a wall on the inside all the way up to the floor or just the cavity above the wall, perhaps an earlyer repair.

We would need atleast 1 1/2" of the floor joist sitting on the wall but we have no reason to beleive it hasn't got rot on the bottom too. So maybe back to cutting the hole so you can get a hand in there to feel how much is sitting on the wall and how good the bottom of the joist is. How good is the floor in the basement?
 
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The bricks are in the basement,and cannot be seen from the outside.
 
nealtw said:
You can buy a test kit for any suspected mold. better to be safe, while you have it open.
Back to the brick, Is the brick a wall on the inside all the way up to the floor or just the cavity above the wall, perhaps an earlyer repair.

We would need atleast 1 1/2" of the floor joist sitting on the wall but we have no reason to beleive it hasn't got rot on the bottom too. So maybe back to cutting the hole so you can get a hand in there to feel how much is sitting on the wall and how good the bottom of the joist is. How good is the floor in the basement?

The floor in in the basement is fine,Today I will cut the "inspection"hole and will try to get a better look from the basement also. Thanks for all your time, and patience, I appreciate it,
 
As Neal mentioned you need to get the rotten wood out of there by chisel, scraper, Jab saw etc. another method I find works good is drilling. I have a large flat drill bit (Spade bit) and an extension and you can drill overlapping holes at arm’s reach if needed. It’s pretty easy to tell when you hit solid wood and that’s the point to stop.

One way to look at it is the rotten wood isn’t holding anything up now so taking it out isn’t doing anything structurally. Most likely it has been like that for many years.

I have found many places similar in old houses and after getting the rotten wood out and trueing up as best you can what is left, treating the wood and patching the foundation to give a flat surface to build back up from, I have then replaced what I took out with chunks of pressure treated wood from inside or outside or both. I like to make the blocks a drive fit and taper the leading edge of the block and really pound them in and then a few screws to keep it together (or lag bolts). If the damage is just over a short distance this is what I have done. Now if the whole beam is bad that’s a different problem but I don’t think that’s your case because you would have seen structural problems in the house.

I keep an ice pick in my tool box. Great for starting screws and also for testing punkie wood.

The problem that caused the rotting in the first place is going to be corrected with your new siding and flashings.
 
Ok this morning I cut out a section between the floor joists,this is what it looks like from the outside. My plan is to cut out what I need to replace above the bottom timber, and pt a new one in,in about a 32in section. We have a large timber from the side of our barn that feel off last year. It is the same size as what is there. There will be about 3 to 4 feet that I will have to patch in.

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That is not what it looks like under the house(ooops) this is.
The floor joists appear to be notched into the timber.
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That answers a few questions, The joist on the right looks suprisingly good but the one on the left is what is suspected you find. A copper based treatment is not rated for inside houses but when you find stuff like this the building inspectors and engineers call for it to be applied to anything that might have rot and anything that will touch the old wood and anything that is sitting on concrete, as much as you can without doing more damage. A quick call to you city inspectors for a recommendation might be called for or talk to people at a real lumberyard.
Anything new you put down against concrete need poly or sill gasket between wood and concrete.
 
Sorry guys no pics this evening, got the timber replaced, it is ugly but very functional. Not my best work which is why there are no pics. It went in so tight I had to use my splitting maul to get it in as far as it needed to be. 1000 times better than what was there. Thanks again fellas for all the info, I wouldn't and more than likely couldn't be doing this with out all your help.
 
I have found on projects like yours there is a strong desire when these problems pop up to get a fix in place and keep moving. I have to always remind myself this is most likely the only time I’m going to ever have this opened up ever again nor do I ever want to open it again and I have to force myself to take a little extra time to do all the little details like Neal has been mentioning.

As to pretty that’s not important as long as the fix is solid. Pretty don’t matter till you start hanging siding.
 
Even in the 1950's they used brick/mortar for air-sealing/fire-stopping/floor joist lateral displacement/rim joist insulation, at least around here. Maybe they got rid of extra brick from the chimneys, as they match in my house. Appears they are sitting on concrete pavers about 1" thick on the CMU's in Post #39.... standard for the age.

Some insulation ideas;http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/published-articles/pa-remodeling-for-energy-efficiency

Fig.43; http://www.buildingscience.com/docu...ybrid-foundations-retrofits-measure-guideline

Gary
 
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Even in the 1950's they used brick/mortar for air-sealing/fire-stopping/floor joist lateral displacement/rim joist insulation, at least around here. Maybe they got rid of extra brick from the chimneys, as they match in my house. Appears they are sitting on concrete pavers about 1" thick on the CMU's in Post #39.... standard for the age.
Gary

The bricks in there are new to me I was worried about the condition of the end of the floor joist. I would hate to tell someone to do something just to have them come back and say the floor sagged or something
 
The ends of a couple of the joists had some rot, someone else has added some additional,patches I guess they would be called. We used that copper treatment where we could before we buttoned up the timber and everything else. I am confident we won't have any issues. The wrap at the top is to just cover a gap between what we had done and what was tore off. One more window to put in, a cover to build for the cellar,then I can start siding.

image-2782273732.jpg
 
monzamadman said:
The ends of a couple of the joists had some rot, someone else has added some additional,patches I guess they would be called. We used that copper treatment where we could before we buttoned up the timber and everything else. I am confident we won't have any issues. The wrap at the top is to just cover a gap between what we had done and what was tore off. One more window to put in, a cover to build for the cellar,then I can start siding.

We want to get the siding started before we start on the upper half,dog likes to eat well everything and we can't have him eating the wrap.
 
Just curious now that you have went up the walls a ways, have you found any problems higher up in the sheathing or even the clapboards with rotten wood and such? Or has it mostly been around the foundation?

Looks real nice what you have done so far.
 
There has been some, it seems that where ever there is any seam, wether it is in the siding or sheathing there is some rot. We had to replace a small section,under the big window,of the interior sheathing.(the walls go,from inside to outside) Sheetrock,p&l,then wood the same as the exterior sheathing,2x4 exterior sheathing.
 
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