Thread: Josit fire damage, floor sinking

Hello
I have a sinking area of a floor supported by joist that were cut and not repaired very well. The problem area was covered in the basement with sheet metal covering the joist. Once I cut the metal away the attached pictures shows what I found.
One burned joist had a new piece of wood attached to the side with one lag bolt that is bending and a few nails.
The other cut joist did not have another piece of wood attached, but did have one end to end that did not reach, a small piece of wood along with a perpendicular 2 x 10 separates the two joist ends (in joist1). The perpendicular 2x10 is attached to the new piece of wood on the one end and the other side under the metal in the picture is attached to a third joist that had fire damage too and is no longer a full 2 x10 on the last 4 feet to the basement wall.
Another problem are the pipes below the damage area, will make added more wood hard.
My questions are:
Should the fire damage wood be taken out?
Should I add a 4x4 post to support that damage area leaving the fire damage wood?
How best to repair the joist?
Thank you for your r time
vintim

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The charring on some of those joists looks fairly deep. I'd have those damaged pieces replaced entirely. Also, fire damaged wood (if it is still stable enough for continued use) should be sealed to help prevent leaching of smoke odor into the house. I'd recommend getting a a good carpenter in there.

Hi Vintim,
I agree with Nick. No doubt, get that area fixed properly. I hope you removed all the metal to make sureyousee all that is there. Did you recently purchase this home? If so, perhaps you should change your name to Victim.

Nick has summarized the issues well...any structural lumber that is charred on more than just the surface should be replaced...if only a short piece near the end is charred it may be possible to "sister" another joist onto it but if this is done is should be glued and bolted. Appropriate hangers should be used. Any charred lumber left should be sealed to prevent odors.
A temporary support post may work fine but it should be temporarily.

Hello all
Thanks for Nick. I think the bad part of the joist was cut out, because the end of the joist shows the inside of the wood and it looks fresh not charred. I will try to move the pipes out the way to put a longer 2x10 in to sister the two cut joist and the bad one under the metal.
Thanks Steven. The house was purchased in 1997 and I came to this problem, because I pulled up the carpet to refinish the wood floors, but found a bad spot in the floor, so I started to look for the problem and this is what I found. I did have it inspected in 1997 and nothing was reported about fire damage and this bad repair. I do not know how long before 1997 this repair happened.
Thanks Jeff. The odor is not a problem because of the time pass; I did not know it was a fire until I wanted to refinish the wood floors. I will put a temporary post until I figure out how best to get the pipes out the way to put the 2x10 in to sister
Thanks all for the replies
[FONT='Calibri','sans-serif']vintim[/FONT]

Vintim,
Best and most practical method of repair that was really required.
You should replace sub-floor and all joist.
With sub-floor tear out you have better access to replace joist. Less time than trying to work with existing wood.
Some times the bigger job actually takes less time and costs less in the end.

Have you thought about going back to seller on failure to disclose fire and damage?

As a general contractor i have repaired many issues like this, if you could post or send me more pictures i would gladly give you any tips for repairing this. Also what condition is the sub floor in.