If you’re having prefinished flooring put down this summer or fall, this is for you. (more…)

Joist - the large beams that give the strength to your floor system.

Scourge - A source of widespread dreadful affliction and devastation such as that caused by pestilence or war.

Okay, okay, that’s probably an overstatement, but it makes the point:

Never, never skimp on joist sizes to try to save money. In fact, I strongly urge you to go up to the next larger size from what is recommended.

My story for today is really heartbreaking.

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If you’ve ever used a steel beam in a remodeling project, then you may consider yourself an advanced practitioner of the trade.

Probably most homeowners aren’t aware that steel can be the best choice for a support beam in a remodel project, especially in this age of impressive LVL joists.

But steel beams can make things possible which otherwise could not have been. This is because the density of steel is somewhere around 20x that of wood, and its strength per weight greatly exceeds wood.

Probably the most common situation where steel is used would be when a load-bearing wall must be removed, yet the support must be provided by a member that is very shallow. This is a very typical situation with old houses whose joists may be a true 2×6 or even 3×6, so we only have 6 inches of height to provide support to the ends of many joists. In this case, only steel provides a solution which satisfies the structural and aesthetic requirements.

Here’s the view with the studs and joists exposed from the lower floor:

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Want to have real hardwood floors, yet avoid the high cost? You may want to consider using a prefinished, plywood-core hardwood. As always, you need to reckon with the drawbacks, but in this case there is actually a benefit of going the cheap route.

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House Jacking part 1 is here.

When you’re in a dark crawlspace, just trying to get oriented can sometimes be quite a challenge, especially in newer or larger houses.

(I have a trick for this: I drill a tiny hole — a sixteenth or smaller — through some existing feature on the floor like a knot or a seam. Then I push a wire or coat hanger through the hole, through the insulation, and down into the basement. This way it’s just a matter of finding that wire to know precisely where I am.)

Next you need to form a theory that explains whatever is happening up in the living space. (more…)

The first house jacking project with which I can remember being associated was the raising of key points on the interior floor of my childhood home, built around 1920. I was about 10, as I recall. I can remember standing in the dining room, feeling a slight sense of motion beneath my feet, and watching cracks appear in the walls. I also recall being allowed to look, but not participate, in the underpinning of piers and beams. For a few days, our basement became some eery kind of dark laboratory with warm islands of light surrounding the greasy ramjacks and steel supports.

The team assembled for the job was my dad, my older brother, and a friend who said he knew how to fix our floor problems. Although I was confident they had everything under control, I do remember that there was a vague kind of uncertainty that came up through the floor with those muffled conversations.

Twenty years later, (more…)

Here’s a reality check for those of you planning a kitchen remodel. You need to think about where the heavy kitchen appliances and cabinets are located on your layout, and then do due diligence to assure that your flooring system is up to the task. Don’t assume that the kitchen designer will do this for you. (more…)

This happened about four years ago.

I was working on a remodel of a 1905-1910 house on Lookout Mountain. Part of the plan was to tear up the shoddy concrete floor of the basement and replace it with a thick, freshly poured slab.

It fell to a friend of mine by the name of Jackson to actually break up and rip out the existing floor, which was at ground level. The tool of choice was a steel wrecking bar. You probably think I’m talking about a crow bar. I’m not. (more…)

I’m sure the bath and kitchen cabinet industry is not alone in having this quirk.

Here’s the deal: The typical cabinet showroom doesn’t charge for its designs. After reading this, you may decide that free isn’t the way to go in this case. (more…)

Not long ago, our master bathroom door started sticking, then jamming. It was rubbing the top of the door frame so that the door wouldn’t close completely. (Luckily this was the master bath and not the one company used.) The problem grew worse over time. After doing some thinking about the problem, I realized the door wasn’t the problem. Neither was moisture. (more…)