Member
· Västernorrland
· 11 695 posts
difficult to furnish? In my house from 1900, the living room floor probably sags about 7-8 cm in total. In one room upstairs, it's like walking uphill towards the door......R r3jonwah85 said:
And that can be entirely acceptable under the conditions in which you purchased the house, however, my question is about a middle beam layer that seemingly and reportedly was straightened and reinforced, but when burdened, it presented problems that turned out to be of a nature that could not be detected without major intervention and that is not due to age (unless one is to generically assume that an older house accumulates construction errors significantly over time). But yes, I realize it's an uphill battle and ambiguous, but I wanted to gather some opinions along the way.S Stefan1972 said:
Member
· Västernorrland
· 11 695 posts
I mean, I totally understand how you think and feel but it really seems a bit like you're exaggerating the problems a lot to make them huge. If you had just moved in without tearing everything apart, it might not have been a big deal in the end. Now a small thing became huge all of a sudden.
Absolutely, you have a point. One could have easily patched this up locally and then forgotten about it, and it probably would have held up. It just feels so foolish to do a half-measure when it's the load-bearing structure involved. However, I think the real issue is that the price of the house would have looked different if this had been discovered, probably significantly more than it actually costs to fix it on your own (as everyone has said, if they can't/won't do it).S Stefan1972 said:
Tyvärr ser det ut som en felaktig ändring av husets struktur (bjälklag) och dessutom oprofessionellt. Fronterna på takbjälkarna och deras olika "färg" bevisar att det inte är original. Påföljande åtgärder säkerställer inte golvets styvhet på grund av oprofessionellt arbete. Av dessa skäl kan det antas att det är ett dolt fel som säljaren kände till. Detta golv är farligt och kan utgöra ett hot mot boendes hälsa eller liv. Men det är inte sant att det är omöjligt att återställa den ursprungliga styvheten. Börja med att stödja de kapade bjälkarna underifrån. Skruva sedan den tillfälliga "regel" uppifrån med en överlappning på 1 m för att förhindra att delarna av bjälkarna rör sig isär, då tar du bort dessa för tunna reglar från sidan av bjälkarna. sedan skruvar du fast 170x45 med rätt plugg till dem på båda sidor. Arbeta med bjälkarna en i taget.
So similar assessment as mine, a view not shared by most hereS sturnus said:
Supporting the beams temporarily from underneath is possible but not without making holes in the somewhat new ceiling downstairs, and elevating the sagging part will completely ruin the ceiling since it is adjusted and attached to the current levels of the beams unfortunately...But otherwise it is similar to what I had in mind, though I will not patch the beam, more replace it with 195x45 on each side making it obsolete.
Do as I did. Bought 6m long flat bars 8cm wide and 8mm thick. Bolt in a zigzag with cc 20 and m8 threaded rod with lock nuts on both sides. Becomes like you inserted an iron beam. Rigid and good.R r3jonwah85 said:
Hidden defects are tricky because unless I am completely mistaken, it is also necessary to prove that the seller was aware of the defect—in your case, maybe the seller did not know that something was cut under the floor.
A parallel situation was when I bought a house in 2013, there was a toilet (toilet and sink) in the basement that we rarely used, but then I started renovating the basement, so naturally, we started using the toilet there.
Then I first noticed that the gypsum outside the toilet was getting wet, and at first, I didn’t understand where it was coming from. I removed the baseboard and cut open the gypsum while someone was flushing the toilet. Sure enough... water gushed out.
I then talked to a close friend who also inspected the house for us, and his response was -Sure, you can start legal proceedings, but first, the seller must have known about it, and then it might take 1.5 years, and you will probably lose in court. In this case, the home insurance covered it with a deductible of 1500.
The problem was (sorry... but I don’t know the right terms) the toilet was about 2-3 cm from the drain pipe that was cut almost down to the floor. The toilet was pressed against the wall, and the installer had pressed out about 5-10 tubes of silicone around the entire back of the toilet and down around the floor. Therefore, water also came out into the wall due to the missing centimeters.
A parallel situation was when I bought a house in 2013, there was a toilet (toilet and sink) in the basement that we rarely used, but then I started renovating the basement, so naturally, we started using the toilet there.
Then I first noticed that the gypsum outside the toilet was getting wet, and at first, I didn’t understand where it was coming from. I removed the baseboard and cut open the gypsum while someone was flushing the toilet. Sure enough... water gushed out.
I then talked to a close friend who also inspected the house for us, and his response was -Sure, you can start legal proceedings, but first, the seller must have known about it, and then it might take 1.5 years, and you will probably lose in court. In this case, the home insurance covered it with a deductible of 1500.
The problem was (sorry... but I don’t know the right terms) the toilet was about 2-3 cm from the drain pipe that was cut almost down to the floor. The toilet was pressed against the wall, and the installer had pressed out about 5-10 tubes of silicone around the entire back of the toilet and down around the floor. Therefore, water also came out into the wall due to the missing centimeters.
R r3jonwah85 said:I have a small problem with a newly purchased house, built in 1908, so a slightly shaky floor was to be expected. I had an Easter project to make it a bit more stable where there was a small dip. However, the more we opened up, the bigger problems arose; the dip turned out to be due to two rafters having been cut, probably for a staircase at one point. There is a support on one side but not the other; the side without has sunk about 10 cm lower than the other side while the other has started pointing upwards (not touching the bottom of the joist hanger on the support), probably when we started putting moving boxes in the room on the other side of the load-bearing wall, it also cracked in the ceiling below.
Anyway - good luck with the renovations, and it can only get better
So I just want some opinions on whether this can be considered a hidden defect (which it seems to lean towards since an inspection was done and nothing was noted about the floor on the attic), and some input on my proposed solution.
I plan to solve the whole thing by placing 195x45 on each side of all beams (even the intact ones, this is the highest height that fits without significantly raising the floor) and then two in between to get 300 mm cc. The span is just under 4.2 m, so it should be OK with screw-glued particle boards.
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We experienced a similar situation. When we bought our house about 5 years ago and started renovating the bathroom on the upper floor (1.5 story wooden house from around 1920), we discovered that several of the "wooden beams" had been cut out to allow for pipe installation so that only about 1/3 of the beam's height remained. This was done on 3 beams in a row in several places, so clearly the strength was not what it should have been even though it hadn't started to tilt yet. However, it swayed more than in other rooms in the house.R r3jonwah85 said:
We pointed it out to the seller who was cooperative and forwarded it to their hidden defect insurance. We then sent in pictures to the insurance company and claimed about 30k in compensation, which was the additional cost to fix the whole thing while we were renovating the bathroom anyway. We couldn't wait for a decision, as we needed to get the renovation done, but after about 3 months we got a response that they agreed to our claim and we received the entire amount paid out. Maybe it helped that we claimed a reasonable amount instead of trying to demand compensation for costs we would have taken on anyway. If the bathtub had fallen through the floor, the costs would have been significantly higher
So it's not at all impossible that you could get compensation through a hidden defect insurance if the seller has such coverage!
I am afraid it is completely hopeless. The dip in the floor could have been detected just by walking on it and if it is as deep as you say, one could also conclude that it is more than just a slightly uneven floor. The latter can be debated, of course, but it is clear that it could have been easily established that something is wrong with the floor and you have then chosen not to investigate it further. The house is also over 100 years old. Your duty to investigate is generally considered more extensive the older the house is.R r3jonwah85 said:
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There was a similar case in an old episode of Husdrömmar on SVT (season 5). They didn't manage to get it through as a hidden defect, but it might come down to details, so it never hurts to try. What have you got to lose other than time?
Don't understand the problem with properly extending with regular/laminated wood and moving on with life. The thread starter seems to be technically skilled, so it should be solvable for them if they have the will (but mostly seems to focus on seeing problems and shifting responsibility to someone else). The height difference in the beams should be solvable, either by propping or notching. The electricity can still run in the beam layer; if the thread starter is worried about stiffness, run flexible conduit in the middle of the beam instead of as it is now.
Possibly one could argue that the inspector should have pointed this out, but it's hard to see the chances of significant compensation being good.
Possibly one could argue that the inspector should have pointed this out, but it's hard to see the chances of significant compensation being good.
It doesn't matter at all whether the seller knew about the defect or not. It can be a hidden defect either way. But, as mentioned, it needs to be something that can't be detected before the sale.Q Qwertyn said:
And you don't need to identify the defect. It's enough if you have some reason to suspect that something is wrong. If the floor is sagging, yes, then you can wonder why. You then need to conduct a more in-depth investigation to fulfill your own responsibility. A reasonable investigation would be to obtain an original blueprint to see the dimensions of the joists. And voilà, you would have seen that a staircase was missing. That would increase the duty to investigate if the removal of the staircase was done properly.
The only thing affected by whether the seller knows about the defect is if the seller has written in the prospectus that the floor is flawless or similar. The duty to investigate is *much* more extensive than the duty to inform.
