Strange goings on under floor

[Big G]

Hi

I live in a 1930’s semi. I’m currently doing a few repairs and needed to go under the downstairs floor to prepare for doing these repairs. I have notice a few oddities though.

1. The distance to the bottom of the void beneath the house is about 14 inches. There seems to be a concrete base to the void - is this normal? Our last house of the same age/type was just soil. Also, as mentioned the depth of the void is about 14 inches. This is except for the underneath of the lounge where the concrete disappears and the depth increases to about six foot.
2. Then there’s the joist direction. As you look at the house, the hall way is at the front right, the lounge the front left, the kitchen is behind the hall - back right and the dining room back left. All rooms have the joists running side to side - except for the lounge where the joists run front to back - again, is it normal for joist direction to change within a house?
3. Finally, under part of the lounge, there is a steel girder that the joists rest on. It seems quite an old girder. Between this and the party wall of the dining room is steel plating, again quite old. Any reason why this may have been put in either when the house was built of sometime since? The floor itself seems to be in good nick.


Many thanks in advance

Gordon

 

[Darkrob_DIY]

Hey Big G,

First point having a concrete base under the subfloor void is perfectly normal and is how it should be done as leaving a mere soil base can lead to problems with moisture passing up through the ground and leaving a permanently damp environment which can lead to rot of timbers etc. Houses pre 1930 would have been left with no concrete oversite, however the use of concrete prevents such moisture ingress and became common practice from the 1930's onwards.

The steel that you mention, could this be that the lounge is a large room and instead of the joists bearing on a sleeper wall in the subfloor void they in fact bear on the steel??

Hope this helps

R Critchley

 

[Static]

Floor joists will span the shortest distance between foundation lines to save on material costs and keep the joist sizes down. It normal for houses to have flooring spaning in different directions.

 

[ModernMaterials]

Just out of interest......

Is it a bay fronted-house? This would explain why the front room joists run front to back, as they have to cover the floor area of the bay section.

 

[Big G]

Thanks for the answers.

The house is bay windowed with the joist ends in the bay so the answer regarding bay windows could be the case here. I may have found the answer to the ‘room’ under the lounge bit too. When I pulled up the nailed down floorboards on top of the original floorboards, I found a trapdoor; about 2 foot by 3 foot (but it looks as though it may originally have been four foot long). Could it be that the ‘room’ below the floor was meant to be a coal cellar?

This ‘room’ is not against the outside wall of the house though (and I can't find any evidence of a hatch to the outside) – there’s the bay (with sleeper wall), then about 6 feet to another sleeper wall. In-between the sleeper wall next to the bay and the sleeper wall under the centre of the lounge, the concrete floor is about 2 foot below the floor joists. The ‘room’ is even further away from the bay and has a depth of about 6 foot (even though it shallows at one end due to lots of rubble). This deeper part of the underneath of the house is the bit with the metal sheeting over it. Whilst the girder does support the floor, I don’t think the metal sheet does. Could it be that the metal sheet is maybe a barrier of some sorts? I’ll take a photo tonight as I have to go down to do some electrical and plumbing work.

The house was originally built in 1934 and is very similar in room layout to many other houses of that age.

Many thanks in advance. I don’t actually ‘need’ any answers – I’m just curious now.


G

 

[blondini]

Could it be that the metal sheet is maybe a barrier of some sorts?
I’ll take a photo tonight as I have to go down to do some electrical and plumbing work.
I don’t actually ‘need’ any answers – I’m just curious now.
G

That was Thursday, now it's Monday and still no word after Big G went down there to photograph the mysterious metal plate. A barrier to something unknown..

Anyone think it's time to call in Mulder & Sculley?

 

[Big G]

Sorry about the delay. The first picture shows the thickness of the metal - the second shows the 'room' itself. Hopefully this uploading of pictures has worked.

G

 

[JohnD]

I was wondering if it might have been prepared as an air-raid shelter, has it got a strengthened roof?

Turn it into a wine cellar!

 

[fitz1]

get it ready for the mother in law.

 

[JohnD]

I was just thinking of Fred and Rosemary (ugh, vile).

 

[ModernMaterials]

On a more positive note:

I love that rusty rsj. I'm thinking: 'screed the floor and pop a pool table in'

 

[ModernMaterials]

p.s. save those bricks as spares for your house

 

[Nige F]

Irish Jay has been fitted wrong way round .....so I`m guessing as a retro fitted cure for bouncy floor

 

[Big G]

Unfortunately, I’m at work at the moment and the photo hosting web-site (Photobucket) is banned so I can’t see the pictures. What I can say though is that the floor above the lounge is very solid – no bounce at all. Wish I could say the same for the floor in the hallway!

If you look at the picture, you’ll see the hole that’s been knocked in the wall which is what I used to get into this enlarged void under the house before I found the trapdoor in the living room. It’s also what I’ll use once we have a living room carpet down.

If you imagine the rooms above this under-floor space, the photo was taken from under the lounge. The wall to the left is the lounge – dining room wall. The wall in front is the lounge – hallway wall. To get into the lounge, you walk through the door from the hallway – which is tight against the dining room wall. I haven’t measured but it will be above the solid brick wall. To the right of this door is an internal brick wall (this wall runs in the same direction as the upstairs floor joists), with an upstairs wall on top of it. The hole in the picture does not have a lintel in it! The wall that used to be there supported two hallway floor joists – they’re now unsupported on one end. And the next joist in the line is also unsupported at one end!!!

Question time: If this hole is underneath the middle of the brick wall above – do I need to lintel it? If it is at the edge of the brick wall above, do I need to lintel it? If I don’t stick in a lintel, can I use some wood, on end, to support the three unsupported joists? I have some bolt down meta-post sockets available, I was going to stick some 3” fence pots in 3 sockets and secure these under the joists above.

I’ll take some more photos on Friday (on the razz tonight and tomorrow) to show you the layout of the room above as well as the ‘hanging’ joists. I’ll also do some measurements to see exactly where the hole is in relation to the solid wall above.

Whilst I’m sticking the photos on, I’ll reduce the resolution and size of the photos already posted.


Cheers

G