I'm fixing my house

[NOT A TA]

Seeing things in this thread will bring up a lot of questions so here's the backstory first.

My dads family dies young. Most died in their 40's to mid 50's. I tried to get my dad to retire when he fist got offered early retirement at about 50. He didn't take it and while his siblings died in their early-mid 50's he became the oldest ever and died 3 months after retiring at 62. Being a workaholic I promised myself I'd force myself to stop working 7 days and long hours by the time I turned 50.  I have all the traits of my fathers family and look pretty much just like them except I still have hair on my head, so I never expected a long life.

After a lot of research I decided on a certain section of S FL to move to which would force me to give up my business in CT and not work till death.  I tried to find a home in Jan 2004 with no luck. The following Jan. the same size homes had gone up $50,000 so I told myself to just go buy a house. I was really sick with Lyme disease (misdiagnosed) and felt like I was dying, sometimes for a couple days, sometimes a month or longer.  On the way down I got sick in GA and was stuck there for a week, then when I finally got to my destination in FL to search for a house I got bad again. I talked to a realtor explaining I was too sick to drive and said if you come pick me up at the hotel each day and drive me to view homes I promise you'll get your commission because I'm not leaving till I find a house.

My criteria for a house was different than most folks. No HOA, 2 car garage. So at the height of the market I bought a fix-er-upper because there was no house across the street and tall hedges on both sides so hopefully I wouldn't get complaints about swapping engines, painting cars, race car trailers, etc.  It was run down, ugly, smelled bad, '74 kitchen & baths, and had poor repairs done to it. It was everything people don't want in a house.

I'll continue the story......

[Jack]

Looking forwards to reading more John.

[NOT A TA]

When the house was built the neighborhood was a gated HOA community of 35 homes with voluntary HOA fees. The original homeowners were snowbirds and middle class local business people, entertainers, etc. The last few original owners when I bought told me all about the old days. Almost all the homes had in ground pools, hot tubs, courts of some type, or other amenities. My house was purchased new in '74 by George McCrae when he had the #1 single "Rock Your Baby" some of you may remember and had a heart shaped pool, hot tubs, and what not, which are all long gone. Yes I've talked to George through the book of faces.

As mentioned I was pretty sick when I looked at the house and just did a quick walk through. It was one of the few places I even got out of the realtors car. I also considered another place but after having an inspector look at both the other one had obvious problems. Most of this homes problems were hidden.

I was too sick to drive back to CT and ended up living in a Motel 6 for a month near a walk in clinic I'd gone to upon arrival. They thought I had blah blah blah and put me on Doxycycline which I'd had a year or more earlier when Lyme was suspected (no good testing back then). After a couple weeks they put me on a much stronger antibiotic and a couple weeks later I woke up one day and felt like someone had turned the lights back on. Apparently I'd gotten to the Meningitis stage as short term memory had been bad for a long time, headache, and other symptoms. So I waited a day to see if I still felt OK to drive and high tailed it outta there back to CT.  Did an away closing so I didn't get a chance to do a walk through which would have let me know most of the appliances didn't work and other issues.

I'll continue the story later but jump to today's work so I can have Kerrys opinion on a remedy. Always good to have others opinions!

The whole roof section above the front porch dropped on more than one occasion due to hurricanes and the supports being blown out when the wind lifted the roof and took weight off of the columns. I now need to fix poor construction techniques before I can make it pretty (well look as nice as T 1-11 ever can). The ridge has a kink and I've been slowly raising the whole section. Have raised it about 6" from where I started. The kink has settled but certainly isn't perfect. Still need to raise the peak an inch or two but the ends of the trusses are close to where they should be.

The columns originally had a couple 2 X 4's nailed together inside them to support the weight with a decorative cast cornice looking piece on the top and bottom of the columns.  Of course the 2 X's weren't PT and rotted until the roof section weight was only supported by the aluminum columns. Then hurricanes came, then poor repair after poor repair was done on the roof and structural parts. What appears to be a really long 2 X 6 header looking piece in the front (the really rotted piece) doesn't support anything and was only used to provide a place to put backers so a ceiling could be put up.

[roadking77]

Looks like you have your work cut out for your! 
Send me a PM.

Your genetics sound about like my family. Just about every male on dads side has heart disease. Heart attacks have claimed all of my uncles, My oldest brother had one at 38 yrs old, I had one when I was 46. Dad was semi retired but all he knew was work, and he did so by choice. He passed away at 68, on his way to work on a monday morning.

[darrylta]

John,
I've been in heavy concrete construction for about 50 years now. I've helped out on several housing jobs when I was younger for mad money.
Never did like it since most of the carpenters were wood butchers, not craftsman.

Your right the span between the 2 columns is problematic. The only way it works is the 2x6 header beam is most likely mechanically attached to the truss
above it. I'd add 2 more columns under the 2x6 (beam) that is supporting the porch ceiling structure.
All of these columns should be bearing on a concrete footing, not just sidewalk bearing.
Darryl

[NOT A TA]

Kerry, yep heart attacks. Dad was out cleaning snow off a car and apparently felt bad and went inside and laid down on couch, phone within a foot of his head. His brother had passed several years earlier at the kitchen table, didn't even fall out of the chair. I had my first at at 58, was in bed having a Lyme relapse day and mid afternoon felt the heart attack so I crawled out the front door. Neighbor saw me and asked if I was OK. "NO, need to go to hospital." He gave me a ride, slowly walked up to reception in ER and told them I was having a heart attack. "Step over to this bed and lay down sir" A quick diagnosis and I was in surgery getting stents 10 minutes later. Thankful I purposely bought a home near a well known cardiac unit.

Darryl, there is so much poor quality construction and repairs I just keep shaking my head thinking "They were paid to do this???".   The porch isn't on a footing, the columns weren't attached to the concrete OR the box, the 2 X 6 box isn't attached to the trusses. And yes I'll probably add two supports in the center.

Additionally

The front truss isn't an end truss it's a middle truss so it doesn't have vertical 2 X 4's four feet apart like an end truss where the siding would be nailed. so the middle sections of siding only had a few nails on top and the center 2 X 4 holding them. Bottom nails to lower 2X 4 were all rusted away because they didn't use galvanized nails for the siding. Are we surprised?

The siding was removed after it was first installed and the house was primed ( I could tell by nail holes). Probably when they realized they had cut the siding sections the same sizes as the ends of the house but they didn't cover the 2 X 6 header box. Then instead of cutting longer pieces of T 1-11 they changed their minds and put the pieces back in place with a few nails and added pieces of siding to cover the box with a molding to cover the seam. Ya, nice water trap they built there, and at least they could have gone back and finished nailing the siding where they could. See siding/molding pic in OP.

The only mechanical connection between the trusses and the box/ceiling are nails holding the plywood ceiling to the second truss.

There are steel brackets to the concrete wall but are only attached (very poorly) to the 2 X 6 ceiling box. So nothing to prevent the roof/trusses from lifting during a hurricane. I ran into similar issues when I fixed the rear porch roof.

Gravity was the only thing keeping things in place when it was first built. On the main part of the house the trusses are held down with 1/4" thick steel straps to the concrete walls. This roof section is essentially a wing sticking out so if the wind is strong in the right direction it just lifts up.

Pic below you can see the 2 X 6 box wasn't attached to the trusses.  I confirmed on the ends also by lifting the truss away from the box.

[NOT A TA]

So while I'd hoped I wouldn't have to replace the ceiling or maybe some of the box I decided it's not safe to do so and the only way to have a better structure is to replace everything below the trusses. So I'll raise the trusses and demo everything below & rebuild. Pretty much sucks because it's more work and easily $1,000.00 in materials today.

I built a couple custom angle cribs to use to jack up the trusses and will also make custom supports for the center of the trusses so I feel safe once there's no box or the original columns in place while I build a new box. Jacks will be removed and trusses supported by 4 X 4's while I demo & build new box. The trick for me will be building the box in place since I don't have any help to lift things.

[firebirdparts]

I'm no carpenter, I admit it, but I would have said there's no way you can support that structure in the middle.  The trusses don't invite you to pick up any weight anywhere but the end.  You obviously have lots of shoring up to do at the points of support, and you can put a big footer under there while it's on the cribs.  Anyway, I think the beam you need to worry about is the short one, that's where the weight is.  Fortunately it's short.

I don't think I had ever heard that song, so I found it on youtube and listened.  He sure did have a high voice.  I was 8 years old in 1974 and I guess by the time I was forced to listen to disco, maybe that song went out of style.

If I knew you had Lyme disease, I forgot.  How are you now?  Whereabouts in Florida?  My inlaws live down there, and we are down there a couple times a year.

[darrylta]

John,
I feel for you not having any help. There is really no safe way to do this repair without a helper.
I'd sister a stick built a truss to the end truss to strengthen it, since it will be somewhat load bearing. Use plenty
of construction adhesive and bolts on it. Straighten the truss bottom chord first before you add the sister truss.

I did a concrete job in Panama City (Bay County) in 1999, built a new waste water treatment plant there. I had to import the key guys from
other jobs to staff it. Most of the others were mainly what I called Beach Bums. Luckily, you only need one or maybe
2 helpers for a week or so. I hope you got a discounted price on this fixer upper.

I wish I was closer to you, I'd help you! I really appreciate our phone chat last week. I decided to keep the 11.5" 3 piece rear wheels and swapped
out 8" wheels for 9.5 wheels for the front. That will allow me to use 315's in the rear and 275's in the front.
Thanks,
Darryl

[roadking77]

PM sent. Joe is correct, the weight of the roof is on the short end. The long bottom part of truss (chord) is under compression and tension as all of them are. First thing I would do is rip out all of the 'false work' at the ceiling to get to the truss bottoms. Then as nice of a job you did with the jack, its in the wrong place. Youre looking for a disaster by trying to jack up on the tails, especially as rotted as those look. You need to jack across the flat bottom of the truss. Put in a new support beam, new post, etc and youre good to go.

[NOT A TA]

Joe, I'm in Delray Beach. Been 20 years since I first got Lyme. I was one of the people who didn't get the obvious rash and before there was proper testing. Got worse for years and misdiagnosed by several different doctors. Luckily the antibiotic I got in FL cured the worst of the symptoms. Relapses occurred regularly in the beginning and tapered off as years went by. I still have related after effects that pop up randomly which may last a couple days, weeks, or months and severly limit my activities. The Lyme seems minor now in comparison to other medical issues, ahaha. Came very close to dead 3 times in the last four years from heart problems only saved by ambulance folks and doctors. On top of the Lyme I have prostate issues, bladder issues, skin cancer, hernia,  etc. To look at me and watch me doing stuff you'd think I was perfectly healthy and in great shape.  5' 6" 135 lbs, not bald, not grey, and still the fastest kid in the neighborhood on my 20" BMX bike ahahaha.

Darryl, ya no helper makes everything more difficult and much more time consuming. No budget for a helper unfortunately. Glad you got the wheels swapped out, 9.5's will be much better. they're 5.5" BS?

Kerry, returned PM and I'd come to your conclusions about removing the ceiling etc first already. Appreciate you spending the time to evaluate and your thoughts!!

[darrylta]

John,
I would think you could barter your skills for labor from an aspiring car kid?
Has to be one out there?
Yes, the back spacing is 5.5"
Darryl

[TATurbo]

Wish I was closer by...I don't know all the technical stuff, but I'm pretty good with a hammer, saw, and floor jack. And would be happy to lend a hand.  I hope maybe you're a little like me and get some enjoyment out of this type of work?   Although, I suspect it's not as fun when the project is out of necessity to keep the porch from falling off your house.

Unfortunately, all I can offer is encouragement and some positive energy sent your way hoping everything goes smoothly.

[firebirdparts]

My inlaws live over the gulf side.  I will probably be down there at thanksgiving.

[ryeguy2006a]

Great story John. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to the progress and more on the story of your house.

[79GoldnTan]

Will be at breakers on the ocean in Feb. Almost meet up a couple years ago. Until then keep up the good work.

[Jack]

I also feel your pain, I needed some 2x4 ended up paying $7.69 + tax each

[NOT A TA]

Darryl, There was a kid like that, he was the only one who knew how to break into my house when it got looted (the 1st time) while I was away. It'll come up eventually in the "story".

Joe, if you ever get over to the better (haha) side of FL let me know!

79gold, let me know when you come down.

Ryan, Thanks but I'd much rather be finishing the Camaro so I can get back to the Firebird!

So, back to the story.

I showed people pics of the house when I returned to CT. They said "Dude, you bought a PINK house?" .....uhh, I am colorblind, couldn't tell so I didn't care, I'll fix it!

While staying at the Motel 6 a young woman was also there long term and we'd cross paths occasionally. One day I was loading my Firebird into the enclosed trailer to bring it to a storage place where it would stay until after the closing on the house. Upon seeing the car she said "HEY, you could give that car to me!" and we became friends. Once I'd returned North and had the away closing on the house I called her and asked her if she'd drive over to the house and check it etc. if I sent her a key since I'd be working 7 days a week for a while.  She'd moved into an apartment with someone in West Palm about 20 minutes from my house and agreed so I sent a key.

I'd turned on the utilities and wanted to be sure everything was OK. She checked on the house and I had her set the AC to 85 to keep it popping on and prevent black mold. She said it smells and opened windows to air it out. I flew down a few weeks later for a weekend and just bought an air mattress etc. at wally world so I could stay there. Bought a lawn mower, cut the grass and other yard maintenance so it wouldn't look abandoned.  Made an arrangement to have next door neighbors kid cut the lawn whenever I wouldn't be back for a while and Stephanie would check on it occasionally.

At the time I owned a very large bicycle/skateboard store in CT I started from scratch and ran for 25 years. We kept 500 bikes and 300 skateboards in stock ready to go and did a lot of service with 3 full time mechanics. So, seasonal business with a bunch of year round employees and a few seasonal. Open 7 days a week April 1 till after X-mas.  The first 15 years I worked 360 days a year building it up and at this point I could take some time off in winter but not much "in season" and typically worked 7 days. I planned to own two homes for a year. My plan was to travel down each holiday weekend and drop off one of the old cars and work on the house. My stepson (a grown man in his mid 20's) would be taking over the business so me being away was good experience for him operating the store and dealing with the daily issues an owner needs to. Seemed like a good plan but, not so much as I would find out later. Lyme disease still had me making decisions I wouldn't have under normal circumstances.

Can't find many pics from the store. We had two buildings with a large parking lot only for customers & employees of the store which was great for folks test riding bikes. This pic is of some guys from the local cable TV company shooting footage of toddler trikes for one of our commercials.

[roadking77]

Pink houses pretty common in Fla, especially the old school in the se part of the state.

Looks like you had quite the business. I remember the post you made pre-crash with you and the BMX stuff, seems like you were doing something that you had a love for.

[NOT A TA]

[roadking77]

Looks much better with all of the nonsense out of the way. Now you can move forward.

[NOT A TA]

This area of the house was more than full of nonsense! I'm in the process of replacing crappy splint jobs done by fly by night contractors. Every time I find something else I just shake my head. Here's some examples.



In the pic below you see ONE 4" nail in one of the the two joist hangers on that side of the roof, the other hanger had one 3/8" lag bolt and one 10 penny nail. Other side of the porch was the same. One 10D, one 4", and a 3/8" lag bolt.





First pic below you can see an angled 2 X 4 that should keep the roof square. Following pics show how each end of the board were nailed in , with just one nail on each end barely holding it up. And no I didn't start removing the board before pics, that big old nail was like that. There was a 6D nail, toe nailed in from the side actually holding the board.

[ryeguy2006a]

WOW!! Glad you caught that. It looks like it was a bad windstorm away from collapsing!

[NOT A TA]

WOW!! Glad you caught that. It looks like it was a bad windstorm away from collapsing!

Lousy repair work, but actually made it through many hurricanes (and a tornado) relatively intact since, including Wilma '05 and Irma '17 after I'd bought the house. will elaborate as I continue the "story". I have LOTS of pics of poor work. Here's a couple even those with no knowledge of carpentry or construction can easily see is bad.

[critter]

If you think the bondo in a car is bad look at the caulk and paint gobbed on in places in these pics! Good luck buddy. You're making progress.

[NOT A TA]

If you think the bondo in a car is bad look at the caulk and paint gobbed on in places in these pics! Good luck buddy. You're making progress.

Thanks!

Been working on fixing the broken & rotted trusses. Here's some pics.

[Nexus]

Well,

How are you making out with the reno's?

[NOT A TA]

Well,

How are you making out with the reno's?

Been working on it every day, usually till dark but have been up on the roof as late as 10 PM with lights to get the plywood covered with tar paper before torrential thunderstorms arrived to begin our rainy season. Fun on a roof in S FL at the summer solstice in mid day sun, hotter than ____ up there!

I've been repairing broken, rotted, termite eaten trusses that weren't anywhere near straight, level or plumb. Apparently after hurricane damage (on more than one occasion) someone just threw new plywood & shingles up on the trusses without resetting them even though they were off as much as 3" in just 10 feet and out of plumb by as much as 3"-4".  So I ended up having to lift the plywood and roofing off the trusses and cut all the nails so I could reset the trusses.  LOT of work for just one person compounded by having to use deadmen to hold things without a helper.

With the trusses now in the proper places I'm making new pieces to keep things where they should be and started making the headers that will hold the trusses up. Haven't had time to upload recent pics so they'll have to wait.

[LeighP]

darn, John......following along...that’s a lot of work.
Still can’t believe the US way of plywood over the whole roof and shingles......seems like a recipe for wood rot. Good luck on the repairs.

[NOT A TA]

darn, John......following along...that’s a lot of work.
Still can’t believe the US way of plywood over the whole roof and shingles......seems like a recipe for wood rot. Good luck on the repairs.

Ya think? (see below) AHAHAHA  This is what happens when people hire cheap fly by night roofing companies here. A lot of them really don't know what they're doing and as you can see don't even know how to install drip edge and felt paper. The results years later are devastating.

[Nexus]

darn that's a lot of work, but you will feel better about it when you're done!!

[5th T/A]

John,

I do not envy what you are going through. In the long run you will probably sleep much better when finished, know the job was done correctly!

[kentucky yeti]

John,

I do not envy what you are going through. In the long run you will probably sleep much better when finished, know the job was done correctly!

↑↑↑

This!

[roadking77]

2021-06-29_02-44-24 by Kerry Grubb, on Flickr
John, These are the post I wrapped on my front porch. Its azek around a treated 4 x 4. 

[NOT A TA]

Nice porch, mine will not be so nice. ahahaha

I like the Azek over PT post idea! Have to go to HD tomorrow and will look for it and learn.

[critter]

Good progress. Keep it up.

[NOT A TA]

While TAC was down our rainy season started and it's slowed my progress a bit, PLUS we had a hurricane scare which I don't need right now! Raining as I type and why I have time to update mid afternoon.

After getting the trusses repaired, level and plumb I squared everything up as much as possible on an old house I installed a couple 2 X 6's cantilevered from the trusses of the main roof where I had considered putting additional poles, so I'm sticking with one support on each side. Added vertical supports to the front truss where siding seams are so siding can now be nailed properly. Then I set about the task of building a new box under the trusses, attached to the trusses this time! Next I did all the fiddly work installing hurricane ties, backers, stringers, etc.

With the basic framework complete I installed a couple 6 X 6 supports. Tapcon 1/2" X 4" holding the base bolted to the porch slab using a Simpson post base and cut the posts so they'd sit straight vertically on the pitched slab.

Rain stopped, suns out! Gotta get back to work, but here's a couple quick pics. Will continue later....

[5th T/A]

John,

Looks like you are making good progress. Glad the last hurricane wasn't too bad.

I have family in Florida, my brother in-law is a retired builder. He has told me the building codes have really tightened up over the years. Hopefully to everyone's advantage. It sure is a good thing you discovered the shoddy workmanship, rotting materials and were able to repair it right before you got hit with a bad one.

[roadking77]

Looking like it should have to begin with Jon. Nice work.

Along those same lines I will interject with a job we did a couple of years ago. 20 yrs or so the county built a new library branch in out town. 20k+ s.f. building. Low bidder somewhat of an inside job. The contractor had no idea how to build a doghouse let alone this building. Long story shorter, they were having major structural problems. My company was contracted to make the repairs. We tore the roof down to the trusses and had to re-set and straighten them out, put 3/4 plywood back on and new shingles, and flashings. Nothing was true. Nothing was centred right, there were several large girder trusses that were not built correct. It was a major job. Worst part was that the work had to be done during the month of Aug, our hottest month. We finished the job in 3 weeks. Looking back I still dont know how we did it but the misery is fresh in my mind.

[LeighP]

Now that’s looking a lot more professional. Good job.