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Hello, I just had a home inspection completed on a house we have a contract on (was pending the inspection). It's a 2 story home built in 1970, 4 bedroom 3 baths and then also has a FROG. The first floor is brick and second floor aluminum siding. The original owners are selling (actually their children). In 1986 the family added a first story addition on the back of the house that stretched across the kitchen (making it bigger and adding a breakfast nook) and family room (making it huge). When you walk onto the addition you can feel a drop of about 1/2" moving from the original floor to the addition. The addition is also brick.
The inspector did an awesome job (5 hours!) and while in the crawl space found a problem with the support for the floor of the addition. Instead of the 2x8 (or 2x10) board resting on the sill under the house he saw that the builder nailed a 2x4 to the side of the sill, made a cut around some other boards under there and supported the floor boards of the new floor on the 2x4 (see pics). I'm working with the listing agent to negotiate the addendum based on the inspection and working to get 2 trusted contractors to give estimates (and opinion). I thought while I was waiting I would see some input here.
The pictures in the crawl space are taken looking to the forward part of the house. There are also some pictures of the inside of the house. The addition starts at the support beam seen in the ceiling of the kitchen and family room and goes towards the windows.
We like the house and it would be a great fit for us (4 children) but I don't want to be foolish about the purchase. Thoughts? Recommendations? Thank you!
That's a bit weird for sure. Should have been the same size as the rest of the beam. Ideally the whole beam should be supported by the masonry and now it's not, even if it were all the same size. In the real world, that part is probably fine, but I would run some carriage bolts all the way through every few feet to ensure it doesn't fall away in the future.
Since you have to jack the structure up to change the board, you can correct the 1/2 inch drop at the same time.
But I would definitely just talk to a structural engineer. They may want you to add to the piers to to be safe.
Thank you both for your feedback. I did just notice, looking a little more closely at the pics, that the support boards aren't actually cut but instead have spacers in between. That makes me feel a little better. The carriage bolts are a good idea. I'll seek to get an engineer in the mix too.
It is hard to see from the picture, but as long as the joist has 1 1/2" of bearing on the original girder it is okay. The fact that it appears to be blocked correctly would leave me to believe it is good. It appears to be about 3" including the scabbed on 2x which would be good. Remember, a home inspector requirements are a very low standard. I'm not saying yours was, but rather they can be a laid off mortgage broker retrained and passed a minimum standard can be a home inspector in a short time.
The elevation offset could be old joints maybe a 1/4" taller than newer milled lumber.
Thank you both for your feedback. I did just notice, looking a little more closely at the pics, that the support boards aren't actually cut but instead have spacers in between. That makes me feel a little better. The carriage bolts are a good idea. I'll seek to get an engineer in the mix too.
I thought the same at first. Now if they are cut and that's not a block between, you really do have a problem.
From the first two pics I can "see" a beam (of undetrimined size and span) sitting on a pier with no PT plate, a full 2X4 ledger that is NOT nailed properly (ledgers require 3 nails per joist it supports), joists of undetrimined size and span with blocking in between.
So, what caused the elevation change in the floor? Who knows! It pure speculation from the point of view of the pics. A determination would need to be done by a physical inspection.
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