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orourke_gw

How to address water damage ? (pics)

orourke
14 years ago

Hello everybody.

As I mentioned in the plumbing forumÂIÂve embarked on a project to remodel one of my bathrooms and at the same time fix some water damage. The water damage was caused by a leaky roof some 15+ years ago under some previous owner (I do not know the exact history). Now that IÂve opened up the walls and floor I would like to fix it. The effect of this water damage is visible as a wall and ceiling wallboard crack on the other side of the wall (in the kitchen). Apparently the water damage caused the floor to sag (by perhaps ¼" is my estimate) causing the cracks. The cracks have not been active in the past 10 years (no more movement) but, as you understand, now is the best time to fix all this.

So the question now is how much to do and how, so IÂd appreciate any advice.

The following diagram shows the layout. Photos showing the actual situation follow.

In the diagram you can see in BLUE where the pictures were taken. IÂve also marked in RED the work IÂm leaning towards doing. Basically I plan to:

1) replace the bottom sill of the damaged wall

2) replace the diagonal floor boards (use plywood instead of boards)

3) Sister the two joists shown in the diagram and also re-level floor

4) Possibly replace a few studs on the wall (not sure about this because studs are stained but feel sound to me).

Joists are 2x8 on 12Â span, perhaps a little underframed by todayÂs standards, especially the two joists that carry the additional weight of the two joists that were cut to accommodate shower and toilet.

{{!gwi}}

And here are pictures:

{{!gwi}}

You can also access the pictures directly in higher res as

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr270/ThomasE_1/A1WaterDamage.jpg

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr270/ThomasE_1/A2Waterdamagedetail.jpg

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr270/ThomasE_1/A3Underneathfloor.jpg

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr270/ThomasE_1/A4Foundation.jpg

Questions:

A) Does the floor look damaged enough to warrant replacement?

B) Does the joist underneath look sound? The wood looks stained but I poked it with a screwdriver and it still feels solid. This is one of the two joists that will get sistered anyway.

C) As you can see in the last photo, the joist below where most of the damage is, also falls on a foundation gap. Is this a problem? (Seems to me that this may have aggravated things when it all got wet since that bottom sill was probably too weak to carry much weight when wet. I do have a solution in mind for that  I will post it perhaps later).

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