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I recently bought an old (1844) saltbox cottage in massachusetts. The house has two bedrooms in the finished attic space. The floor is soft at the entrance of one of the bedrooms so I carefully cut a hole into the sheetrock ceiling in the living room below with a keyhole saw to find out why. The viewhole I made showed the problem was a damaged plank in the subfloor, from some previous owner being overzealous with a sawzall (or something) which I'll deal with, but isn't the main point of this message.
It also showed me the floor joists are 4x4 timber that look really neat! My wife got excited by this and so she wants us to expose them and put up beadboard between the joists. To that end, I took the entire ceiling down and then discovered something unpleasant: one of the ends of one of the joists and the plate it was sitting on have rotted:
s1084.photobucket.com/albums/j401/halfline/House/?action=view¤t=6623483437_2affe24bbe_o.jpg
(sorry the links aren't real, i jointed this forum specifically to ask about this problem and I don't have enough cred yet to embed images)
It looks like there was a spill at some point in the bedroom upstairs that wasn't properly cleaned up:
s1084.photobucket.com/albums/j401/halfline/House/?action=view¤t=6623494875_c87c026d49_o-1.jpg
Also there's a window directly above the problem area that looks like it was replaced at some point (it has vinyl frames instead of wood like some of the other windows), so there may have been a leak there.
If possible I'd like to fix the problem inconspicouslsy so I can proceed with the wife's exposed joists + beadboard plan.
What are my options for repairing this? Some sort of steel bracket ? resin? rip out the joist and try to find another piece of old timber? Give up on exposing the timbers, shore them up with sistered lumber and box them to get the exposed joist look?
Some more photos of the problem joist:
s1084.photobucket.com/albums/j401/halfline/House/?action=view¤t=6623488553_5b4447394f_o-1.jpg
s1084.photobucket.com/albums/j401/halfline/House/?action=view¤t=6623478619_40eb034b7e_o.jpg
s1084.photobucket.com/albums/j401/halfline/House/?action=view¤t=6623477041_864f6e9c43_o-1.jpg
I would really appreciate any insight you guys have.
It also showed me the floor joists are 4x4 timber that look really neat! My wife got excited by this and so she wants us to expose them and put up beadboard between the joists. To that end, I took the entire ceiling down and then discovered something unpleasant: one of the ends of one of the joists and the plate it was sitting on have rotted:
s1084.photobucket.com/albums/j401/halfline/House/?action=view¤t=6623483437_2affe24bbe_o.jpg
(sorry the links aren't real, i jointed this forum specifically to ask about this problem and I don't have enough cred yet to embed images)
It looks like there was a spill at some point in the bedroom upstairs that wasn't properly cleaned up:
s1084.photobucket.com/albums/j401/halfline/House/?action=view¤t=6623494875_c87c026d49_o-1.jpg
Also there's a window directly above the problem area that looks like it was replaced at some point (it has vinyl frames instead of wood like some of the other windows), so there may have been a leak there.
If possible I'd like to fix the problem inconspicouslsy so I can proceed with the wife's exposed joists + beadboard plan.
What are my options for repairing this? Some sort of steel bracket ? resin? rip out the joist and try to find another piece of old timber? Give up on exposing the timbers, shore them up with sistered lumber and box them to get the exposed joist look?
Some more photos of the problem joist:
s1084.photobucket.com/albums/j401/halfline/House/?action=view¤t=6623488553_5b4447394f_o-1.jpg
s1084.photobucket.com/albums/j401/halfline/House/?action=view¤t=6623478619_40eb034b7e_o.jpg
s1084.photobucket.com/albums/j401/halfline/House/?action=view¤t=6623477041_864f6e9c43_o-1.jpg
I would really appreciate any insight you guys have.