Rot

Most of the sill on the north side of the house had to be replaced. (The sill is the wood that sits on top of the foundation.) It wasn't obvious at first, because the side of the wood that looks fine is the only side we could see. When Ray was trying to repair a small bit of settling in the front room floor, they discovered that the sill was more than half rotted away!

It's fixed now, but this is exactly the sort of problem that is causing "feature creep" in the scope of this project.

New Floor Joists

The old joists needed to be removed. Here, Ray is using a sawzall to remove part of the rotted sill.



The old floor had settled more than 3 inches from east to west. You can see here how the old joists were patched together and repaired piecemeal over the years and shored up with makeshift piers. It's all coming out and being redone right.



This rotted joist and crumbled pier were holding up the floor. It's amazing that it hadn't collapsed!



Eventually, the entire floor from the front of the house to the read had been removed.





By the time the demolition was complete, the pile of rubbish in my backyard had grown quite substantial.



A foundation crew came in to pour the new footers.



And finally, the new floor joists could be installed.