My parents house had a new stemwall foundation installed about 10 years ago. The original foundation suffered from numerous shortcuts (no plates, backfill above joist line, no ventilation in crawl space, and an 8-foot thick concrete porch on the front). Point is, there was a lot of sinking/shifting. The contractor (who had a not-fun time) elected not to try to correct any of the various altitude changes in the floor joist levels, reasoning he would cause further damage to the interior plaster, etc. Did a good job on the new stemwall.
However, now that the crawl space has adequate ventilation, the high-clay content soil beneath the house had dried and or course, shrunk. This has really dropped the summer beam supports, and the house now looks like Jack built it.
Questions: Can I start jacking the summer beam up? What type of support do I need under my jacks? How much can I jack up the summer beam? Who wants to help me do this for free? Thanks in advance for pearls.
A certified member of the religious right conspiracy.
Replies
What is the Religeous Right Conspiracy?
It is those who await for the summer to beam them up.Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.
An offshoot of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, what else?
Webtrooper,
Like JoeH said, it's an offshoot of the vast right wing conspiracy that Hahahillary accused of plotting to overthrow her hubby. We have also been accused of trying to hijack the Republican platform and force them into our way of thinking. Watch out! We will use our mindmeld powers to force you to worship our way! Just by reading the phrase in quotations below, you will change from an independent thinking, tree-hugging atheist into Gary Bauer's gardener. WARNING!! reading the next sentence will produce permanent and damaging changes in your psyche! ""one nation under GOD."" There. Transformation complete. Please stop by any hotel, pick up your bible, and start knocking at your neighbor's doors. Show them a copy of this letter, and soon we will spread throughout the whole world! Bwahahaha.
Oh no.... I read it and have a sudden compulsion to spend $50 million in public money to investigate and besmirch a sitting president. I feel the need to interview every person who has had any contact with said president including his nursery school teacher for signs of his imperfection.
If no sin is found I take it to mean that a greater conspiracy is blocking the crime and dig deeper because I know there is dirt to be found. My job is to find it. Never mind about proportion and balance. This is a fishing expedition and any minnow will do. Seeing as that it is taxpayers financed and people with wealth don't pay taxes, only accountants, money is no object.
Any luck at all and I will find a power groupie trying to kneel and bob her way to the top to use against him and document it by having another member of the conspiracy illegally tape the evidence. Never mind that 2/3rds of the male population in the US is guilty of the same thing and have lied about it many times. Of course for $50 million I could just buy the Senate. Buy a 1/440th of a bomber that can be shot down with a pelican. Or 1/4 of a corporate executives golden parachute.
Illegally run an insurgency, against congressional mandate, killing thousands of innocent civilians and no small number of Americans in "training accidents" and you are defending capitalism and a hero. Run that same capitalist system into the ditch for your own benefit and you are a pillar of the business community. Use taxpayer money to finance, contrarily to law ,the sale of missiles to a regime holding Americans hostage and their manufacturer, who gets the contract to replace them, will finance part your next election bid.
Get down to your last $10,000. of your trust fund while your father is vice president, and heir apparent, and business opportunities will magically appear and pay off your next election bid. Repay the favor by turning a blind eye to financial and environmental regulations. The whole game is, and has been, rigged so that those with money are too big to fail and so the little guy gets to finance everything. Of course none of these people is evil. Just self centered and short sighted. And the beat goes on. I laugh to keep from crying.
Edited 7/14/2002 3:46:26 AM ET by 4LORN1
Hey, 4Lorn1,
Guess my little attempt at humor touched a nerve, eh? I'm sorry but I can't personally take credit for the impeachment attempt against the former President you appear to be standing up for. I'm really not as pro-Reagan/Bush as you probably think I am. They're not conservative enough for me. I doubt seriously that any politician who has accumulated enough political capital to be elected president has no ethical, moral, or historical weak spots. I just think some are not as bad as others.
By the way, just a selected response to part of your tirade. I didn't particularly care that ex-President Clinton had an adulterous relationship and lied to the public. What had me concerned (and what the impeachment of Nixon was supposedly based upon) was that he did and was prepared to continue to use the powers of the Presidency to bury the investigation. I suppose history will judge on the ultimate validity of the investigation, although if the folks in Washington are spending all their time investigating each other, maybe they won't be writing goofy legislation as often.
Sorry for the tirade. I'm feeling a little peevish due to a recent death in the family. I should have saved the rant for the woodshed.
It doesn't help that I have been reading texts from the ultra right about how the corporate shell games are Clinton's fault. As if the business community, historically very conservative, was following Clinton's lead. These guys blame Clinton for everything back through the the Spanish inquisition and the crucifixion of Christ to original sin. My rule of thumb is that anyone who attracts such a concerted attack, without a great deal of blatant provocation, must be doing something right. Osama himself hasn't raised such ire.
4lorn1,
I am sorry to hear about the recent death in your family. Apology accepted and tirade forgotten. I wasn't upset with you, just a little surprised, I guess. One of my biggest problem with the liberal media in particular, is they are guilty of exactly the same thing they accuse right-wingers of, to whit, of putting anyone who holds a particular view into a neat little stereotypic box. For example, I consider myself to be a conservative Christian. Therefore, I am intolerant, I get my marching orders from Limbaugh, I am incapable of independent thought, I am uneducated, so on and so forth.
Note I am not accusing you of same. I hope that people in this forum (although I have already seen examples to the contrary) are not falling into the stereotyping mode. I mean, come on. The stereotype of a construction worker/carpenter is someone who whistles at babes on the sidewalk while carrying on monosylabic conversations about sports. I don't see too much of that on this web site.
Now, about your statement about Clinton being ganged up on. I agree with that the conservative movement would love to pin everything they can on Clinton. Just like most things you hear/read, some of it is true, and most of it is probably wishful thinking. It's like the economy. Most people vote for presidential candidates based on how the economy is doing. Anyone with common sense knows that A) It takes the economy a long time to react to any policy, and B) Presidents WISH they had that much power. I personally, as a member of the US Armed Forces, think that Clinton was not a good Commander-in-Chief. I think his use of the military was naive and self-serving for the most part.
Flip side, I think the Democrats are doing the county a disservice by trying so hard to pin anything they can on G.W. If he HAS done something criminal, bring out the facts and bring on the investigation. If not, get used to the fact that a war-time president has a little more election-time pull and come up with some real issues for the voters.
If it interests you, my core political beliefs are:
1) Big is bad. Big corporations/big government equals abuse of power, inefficiency, and corruption.
2) The less money Washington has to spend, the better off we are.
3) There's too many lawyers. Did you know that just the great state of Illinois graduated 40,000 lawyers this year? Too many lawyers equals too many laws and lawsuits.
4) I hate gradualism. We have gradually redefined US law to bypass most of the Constitution. If these laws are so great, modify the Constitution to include them. Otherwise, why have a Constitution in the first place.
That's probably enough for now. Nice chatting with you, and me and mine will pray for you.
Gee fellas, sorry I asked.
~ WebTroper ~
BTW (secret handshake) What is a summer beam, as opposed to a plain ol' beam? No controversies please.
I'm glad you asked that - I didn't want to be the first to jump in.
I'm curious too - What do you use to hold your house up in the winter ???
If this car is being driven courteously it's been stolen.
"Summer Beam" is a large beam or girder in a traditional timber frame floor system. It is usually large in cross section to accomodate the timber floor joists which are notched into it. It must be large so it's not weakened by the notches.
In modern construction, it might be likened to a header or girder to which joists are butted to it and attached with joist hangars.
It was normally used when the tops of the sills and girders were to be kept on the same plane as the rest of the floor frame, I suppose to maximize crawlspace with minimum excavation.
Edited 7/16/2002 10:11:00 AM ET by Notchman
Interesting Point about the crawl space.
I wonder However, Who would they have fastened the joists to the beam. I think it is just part of the way they did things.
Many off the old timber frames where built by a number of joiner's who each had a specialty.
Each man picked his trees . They were felled in the mid winter, while the sap was down. Then hewn and milled to the appropriate dimensions.
One guy would be responsible to build the purlin's for the barn, one guy would do the summer beam, another guy would mill the rafters.Etc. Every peice was then Numbered and dragged to the site for the razing. pre-fit ready, to be pegged.
Anything less than a pegged mortise and tennon would not have held. The wood was still somewhat green Nails wouldn't have held it. and it would have been hard too.
I wonder why they called it a summer beam? Maybe it had to do with the time when they started that phase off the job? I don't know.
Actually, my comment about crawlspace was kind of stupid because I don't think crawlspaces were a consideration way back when. The foundations usually consisted of dry-stacked stone with a sill beam and the summer beams were the midspan beams to carry the joists.
I'm not sure if the original poster was really referring to a true summer beam or if that was just a term picked up somewhere. They didn't really describe their structure.
I don't know the origin of the term "summer beam," but you may be right.
I thought it interesting that the string took off immediately into a commentary about religion, due to the original poster's little addendem about his/her faith. Truth is, a lot of early Euro/Americans were what we would today refer to as "unchurched." Hacking out notches and mortises with poor equipment probably led to the refinements of contemporary expletives.
"Hacking out notches and mortises with poor equipment probably led to the refinements of contemporary expletives."
Now that's funny.
I suppose one could also that some became christians when they fell off the roofs and asked God for help on the way down?
I'll do anything for money, except work.
So you might appreciate this: "Summer" as an architectural term refers to a heavy horizontal timber that serves as a supporting beam, as in a floor; a lintel; a large heavy stone usually set on the top of a column or pilaster to support an arch or lintel. {From Middle English summer, from Norman French "sumer" (pack animal), from Vulgar Latin saumarius....} (American Heritage Dictionary)
So...it was those early Italians that hacked and chopped and fell off steep roofs and cursed their way into history....
Hey, Notchman
I used the term summer beam because I am a timer framer, and I picked a term I was familiar with. It is not a true beam, being just a nailed-up plate common to a ranch frame sitting over a crawlspace. Sorry for the confusion.
As to the origin of the word summer beam, in jolly olde England, when framing up the house, the master framer would keep a tally of joints cut on one side of the center support beam, and a tally of material used on the other. He had a plan in his head which required a certain amount of each, and would cross-check the actual tally against the planned total. He often checked the "sum", and the term gradually became applied to the beam. Summer beam. (Did you buy that?)
By the way, having cut my share of notches and mortises with handtools, I can tell you that besides expanding your vocabulary, you learn perserverance.
"....you learn perseverence."
I, too, do traditional European timber framing and I agree about the perseverence. I used to hate cutting notches and fiddling with wood joints, but eventually I learned to really enjoy doing that and making air-tight scribed log joints and a lot of other handmade jointery of heavy wood that take a lot of time and physical effort.
Yeah that is an Good point too. I bet most of the examples of Historical sites, where poor people lived ,were not preserved. Leaving few if any Examples and ( a stereotypical impression) of the lives these people led. Sure you have the eckley miners village and the shotgun shacks in mississippi. There were poor people in every town. The ones who can afford to build it right. Get all the glory. We are too ready to put things into catagories, for the ease of understanding. Maybe we are missing out on some of the uniquness in our heritage.
I wonder how much "duct tape engineering" was destroyed or un- documented because preservationists thought it was irrelevant. That is just the kind of thing that let's you peer into the minds, of past generations That interests me, seeing how people coped. Nescessity is the mother of invention right. I guess we have to take what we can get.
I have seen Summer beams, in old homes around here. In fact my father rented a house ,which was an old mill house, attached to the mill. probably built in the early 1700's.
Below , in the crawl space, below the bottom edge of each joist, was a ledge carved into the joists. It ran the full length, like a shelf. carved out of the joist like an upside down T. You get the idea.
The purpose of this was to hold the parging and probably lath, Which was laid between the joists. This kept the cold damp air, from coming up through the floor boards.
As in this situation , Some old farm houses were built over a spring. I personally lived in one growing up. They used it for keeping milk cold and butter etc. like A fridge, By setting the old metal milk cans in the water.
The old farmer we rented it from refered to it as the spring house. Very old. The house and the farmer. It was your basic "I" house, with a center hall, the whole place was only about 18feet wide and about 30 long. 2 rooms down ,2 rooms up, with a modern addition.
Underneath, half was a crawlspace the oher half was built on grade. I guess . No crawlspace, nothing to see. No summer beam.
The second floor was a short kneewall with the ceiling on the slope of the rafters. No attic . I saw the rafters thru a hole in the wall once. hand hewn and numbered. Ibet they were pinned at the top too.
This was in the 70's I was lucky to live in a place like that. It was sold, "Restored", ( the old part ), The addition torn down . They built a more "appropriate" add on.
You WERE lucky to live in such a house and even better, you remember its character.
Somewhere I have a book (I'll find it later and post it) that is a historical descriptive text of early European and Nordic log and timber frame architecture. It inspired me, when building my own house, to create an eclectic mix of logs and timbers and stone. I was able to put a cruck frame in one room, hammerbeam trusses in the dining room; my living room has what would probably qualify as a summer beam supporting log joists, bedroom has tradition bents w/kneebraces, etc. It was pleasing to do (a real bitch to finish out), but all in all, a rewarding result.
And I should point out that I had to learn by reading and by trial and error. It was all made possible for me, though, by some of those "hippy" carpenters of the 60's and 70's who revived some nearly forgotten crafts (while I was basking in the heat and humidity of Vietnam), became skilled at it and shared their knowledge by writing about it and building structures that inspired those like myself.
And, of course, for those who really love a woodworking challenge, the intricate and clever joinery of the Japanese is almost on another level altogether.
Professionally, I only get to do timber or log framing here and there with more traditional work being the norm.
"Frenchy" is the timber framing man to watch right now and whenever we can get him to employ a camera, it should be a real treat.
hey frenchy, why don't you take some snapshots of your place and send the photos to one of the guys on here who knows how to scan and post the pics so we can see your house?Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.
I don't know much about it. Maybe you do. I heard that some of the Japanese Temples, Which are 1000's of years old, Are regularly,( as scheduled from 100's of years before ), unpinned ,dis-assembled , cleaned , bad wood replaced. Every 500 years or so. Did you ever hear anything like that Notchman? That blows my mind, to think, they think that way.
Just say no to Nails! - my new Quote. I think I'll make T- Shirts.
You can jack up the summer beam anytime. I would first dig footers for the posts. These should be sitting on undisturbed earth and should be at least 24"x24"x8" and reinforced with 4 pieces of #4 rerod placed like this-#. You need to use a hydraulic jack with a capacity of at least 8 tons. If the footing is fully cured you can jack off this. If not, make a little cribbing out of 2x material, again placed in a # pattern to distribute the weight over a large area. The base should be perfectly level. Cut a couple of 2x4's to go from the jack to the beam and nail them in a T to prevent them from buckling. Place a metal plate to spread the force from the top of the jack to the post and jack the beam until you are happy with the result. You may need to do this in a few places depending on the length of the summer beam. Good luck and have fun.
> This has really dropped the summer beam supports, and the house now looks like Jack built it.
How did the plaster hold up when this happened? Did you get the kind of damage that the stemwall contractor wanted to avoid?
There's one other on-topic post about concrete piers and jacking that's pretty good. To it, I'd add the suggestion that you line your excavations and forms with 6 mil black poly to prevent any moisture transfer between your expansive soil and the new concrete.
I just did a new footing under a girder in the middle of my house, about 2/3 yard of concrete. There are pictures of it in the photo folder. I took up some flooring on one side to get access. It was tough enough that way, I don't even want to think about how much fun it would have been to do that by pushing 5 gallon buckets of mud 30 feet thru the crawl space. 2/3 of a yard would be about 27 buckets....
If you want to try to save the plaster, before you jack do a little preparation. Rake out any existing cracks that will have to be repaired anyway to about 2". Pull the baseboards in the affected area, and rake out the bottom of the plaster up to about 1/2" above the top of the sole plate. This will give the existing pieces of plaster room to move, and minimize the transfer of new stresses to them. Jack and crib little by little all the way along the beam, instead of taking the first post all the way to its final position, then the next, etc. I can tell you that this will help, but I can't tell you that it'll help enough to prevent any new plaster damage.
-- J.S.
Summer beam:
It took all summer to make it. All those notches............no turn left unstoned
John Sprung,
Yes, we did get significant amounts of plaster damage. One door has a four inch drop from one side of the frame to the other. Cracks in walls and cracks in ceilings.
Thanks for the tip about the poly liner for the footings. I'll be sure to use them. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to slogging that cement. I'll probably use a sled on plywood to tote it around.
Good tips about the plaster. With all the cracks, plus some attempted repair work that's been done before, I'm not really sure that I won't end up replastering the house anyway. I'll probably try to save it using your techniques. Thanks alot for the information.