And the wall came crumbling down . . . Today we removed the brick wall that was the original rear facade of the house. The wall was so badly decaying that it bowed 4" horizontally and vertically. This once 2 story exterior wall had been captured by a subsequent rear addition and was particularly divisive to the floor plan. It separated the kitchen in the rear from the dining and living room in the front. By removing it we will open new sight lines thru the first floor - contributing the the open concept floor plan. Initially we had believed that this wall was not load bearing as all joists on the first and second floor span from party wall to party wall. This is typical of most rowhouses - The main structural members span the short dimension - side to side.
On 'Demo Day' (subject of next post) we discovered after removing the many layers of ceilings and our famed squirrel's nest that the roof of the rear 11'x13' addition had its roof rafters landing on this brick wall and it was in fact load bearing.
In order to remove the wall, each 3x6 rafter was sistered with a pair of 2x10's that extend to connect the roof rafters to a new beam installed parallel and along side the brick wall. These modified rafters were then connected to the new beam with Simpson hangers. We also temporarily shored the rafters with vertical 2x4s under each member.
Once the roof was secure, we slowly removed the top few courses of the wall brick by brick from underneath the rafters. Interestingly enough, two of the rafters were not even applying load on the wall. The sheathing above was transferring the load over to the main roof, adjacent rafters, and exterior brick walls. This wall was in such bad condition it was actually buckling over from its own weight. The mortar was so badly deteriorated it made it easy to disassemble. Brick by brick we tore the wall down and dropped them out the back window and now we have a huge pile of bricks in the yard. HAVE BRICK - NEED FILL?
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment