Leveling weirdness

So I couldn't use the screw 2x6s to the sides of the joists like I did before since they are too tall by about 1/4" with all the cross lumber, which means its time to pull out all that stuff

 
I decided after consulting my civil engineer friend that pulling out all the 2x4s and 1" thick stuff and then running the 2x6s over it with OSB blocks screwed onto the sides would be best.  It's a lot more work than just screwing 2x6s to the sides, but at least doesn't cost more since I had a ton of scrap OSB pieces that aren't really large enough to use for the floor.

In the hammering that I did with installing those, I made a mess downstairs in the kitchen doorway...

1940's composite joists

The only room left to level is the master bedroom, but to start on it I have to get all that other floor off the floor first.  I just threw it down behind the porch, it's interesting how much larger the pile seems in person.  I ended up making a post on Craigslist for "Free Firewood" thinking someone might use it as shop firewood.  Five people ended up contacting me about it, and none wanted it for firewood... They took most of it so it wasn't even a full trailer load to take to the dump, which was nice.

After pulling I up the subfloor, I was surprised by what I found.  It seems there were just 2x6s there originally which just held up the ceiling, but then they added a room and 2x6s aren't really enough for a floor.  So instead of replacing them, they just used some 1" thick lumber running across perpendicularly and then 2x4s on top of each of the 2x6s.  Everything was nailed together pretty well at least.

More floors

I cut, glued, and screwed down the OSB that I already had upstairs, so now when I get to the top of the stairs I actually have something to stand on.  Then I had to move more up from the garage, which was more of a pain than the last time since there was about a foot of snow on the ground.

For the bathroom I decided to use pressure treated plywood instead of the OSB because of all that water damage from before.  It cost more and was heavier, but hopefully it means I won't have to replace it for a long time.  When I put it down, I only put a few screws in each since I'll have to pull it back up for doing plumbing.

And it's all done

Now to clean up and put down the paint lines for reference

Brackets brackets brackets

I tried putting the notched cross-joist in again, and it cracked in the same way, for the 3rd time.  So I'm just going to glue it tomorrow and be done with it.  To fill the gaps in the notching in the upper parts of the joists I shimmed it.  It's amazing how stable the joists are now, far more than in the front room with the ceiling attached to the bottom.  I also put the brackets on each of the joints on opposite corners like my friend said to

Rolling the joists

All the joists are hung, it's surprising how impossible they are to walk across like this because of how it resonates since there is no ceiling attached to the bottom and nothing on top.

This is how I did around the toilet, I left more space than I needed to so it's easy to work in if I need to, plus it shouldn't be hard to add some blocking for support if its needed.

I talked to my civil engineer friend, and he said I should add a cross-joist under where the one bedroom wall is, since it might end up being load bearing when there is a lot of snow on the roof.  To do this, I'm running a 2x8 perpendicular to the joists, with each notched out so they fit together, and then using brackets to tie it all together.  Here's the markings for the notches

While I was cutting the notches, I ended up cutting through one of the nails in the double 2x8, so that's cool looking

After seeing the state of the subfloor in the bathroom from all the water, I decided I want to be able to replace it down the road easily.  So instead of putting the bottom plate for the wall on top of the sub floor like normal, I'm putting it directly on the joists.  I decided to put it in now so can more easily walk across the joists (it was surprising how much it helped).  This picture also shows the notching.

I notched the perpendicular 2x8 as well, here's what it looked like

 
Then tried to put it in, but the wood split on the end

Since I had the extra wood I decided to give it another shot, and loosen up some of the notches in the joists so I wouldn't need to hammer so much.  And it happened again, so at this point I was done for the night.

Pulling the joists

First off, I'm finally caught up on this, so what happened in this post actually happened today.

Pulling the joists out actually went pretty well, I just cut them in the large notches and at the other and an pulled the 3 chunks out for each.  Here it is with the main sections of a few done

That board I fell off of yesterday is incredibly useful when I don't fall off of it

And they're all out now

Because of the fact these are 2x8s, and they really should be larger than that, I decided to put them on an 11" center instead of 16".  The ones that were originally there were also 2x8's but their actual dimensions were 1.75x8, unlike the 1.5x7.25 we have today. 

Side note:  Hammering is much, much harder than it first seems, especially with larger nails.  If you haven't tried hammering a 16 penny coated sinker before, you should, it's an eye opening experience.

So here it is with the joist hangers installed, there's a larger space for the rightmost one because I'll be doing the glue/screw thing on the side of the joist that is still there.

I also decided to put in the one double joist today.  There is one double one because I'll be framing around the toilet drain properly, instead of notching out 6 out of the 8" and then trying to reinforce it

Falling through

Here's all the stuff pulled off the joists, one of them is gone since it broke completely in half while I was removing stuff.  Another one of them split down the middle for about 4'.

Originally, I was planning on gluing and screwing a 2x8 to each side of the joists to reinforce them, similar to the normal joist leveling process, but then I saw how useless most of them where.  So now I'm just going to pull all of them and replace them.  But, the ceiling on the first floor is held up by them, so I have to put something there to support it.

In order to be able to work by the outside wall, I had to make something to stand on since the joists will be gone, so I attached a 12' 2x4 vertically to the bottom of a 12' 2x8.

And then I tried to walk across it before I finished stabilizing it...falling through the ceiling.  Luckily, I managed to fall in a way where I didn't get hurt

But I made a mess downstairs, if only I was able to get a picture of my legs dangling there

At least drop ceilings are really easy to fix, so from being in the floor to everything cleaned up, it was only about 40 minutes.  Once spot of the metal buckled, and only one tile broke, so it was easy to deal with.