Replacing Joists In Rowhouse

Philly Dude

I'm trying to replace 5 joists that support the second floor in a 2 story rowhouse.

The problem: one end of the span the joists go into individual pockets in the brick wall, on the other end of the span the joists go into the webbing of steel girder that runs horizontal, parallel to the brick wall.

How do I get the new joists in ?

I have the floor above cut out. The partition walls above that are not being removed are supported with screw jacks. The webbing of the girder is 2" wide. The joist pockets are about 4" deep. Code says I need 3" of joist in the pocket and 1.5" in the girder.

The only way I can figure they built this house was to build the brick wall up to the level of the bottom of the joists, then slide the girder end of the joists in and lay the brick wall end of the joists on top of the partially built wall, then finish the wall around the pockets for the joists.

wallmaxx

Wow.

Kinda hard to bow a joist enough to shrink it at least 4 1/2" in length.

1. Can the bricks at the pockets be carefully removed from outside, slide the joists in, and reset/mortared? (I'm no brick guy)

2. How tight is the vertical height opening in the steel webs? Maybe you could use smaller height LVLs (with the same or better span rating) than the existing joists and angle them into the webs where you could slide them far enough in to get them to line up with the brick pockets, then slide them into the brick pockets. Then you would just furr up the difference in the joists to return the floor system to its original height.

3. A 3 1/2" Glulam ledger beam underneath one end of the joists along the length of the wall is another option. Mitigate the concentrated load paths required to support such a beam and then rock it.

Keep us informed on how you skin this one.

Mike

Stewy

sounds like your only too big by a half an inch, can you bow the joist to shrink it that much? can you make the brick pockets a half inch deeper?

Philly Dude

Wallmax,

1 It is a row house so there is no going in from the outside (I'd be in the neighbors house LOL).

2 This might have worked. The webbing is about 8" in hight. I'm using 2x10's as the span is just over 12'.

3 This may have been the best option. Especially since there was a drop ceiling below so the ledger board would have been already hidden.

Thanks for the reply.

Anyway I did the job today. Turned out the pockets were about 5" deep, so I was able to slide the wall end of the joist in first, then line up the other end with the girder webbing, the slide it back out of the pocket 1.5".

In this job I am fixing a real cluster F*** that some hack did to this house. He replaced these 5 joists (and a few others) and when he did it he did not support the partition walls above. So everything in this section of the house sagged about 1.5". He then replaced the joists , making them 1.5" lower then the rest of that floor. Then he sheetrocked over the partition walls to cover up the cracks and gaps I'm sure are in there.

So I had to remove 2 partition walls and jack up another one so I could put the new joists in at the right height. Of course all the new sheetrock that numbnuts put in is bowing and cracking out because the walls are now the original height.