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Whitby Cottage Floor in need of Support

By Andy the stuff doer

If you’ve read the previous post from the “other half” you’ll know we’ve got plans for the bathroom in the cottage.  After the last weekend’s investigations, I’ve got other things to keep me occupied.  The details of a finished bathroom are far from my mind. 

I’ve discovered there’s not a lot holding the floor up and its far from level. Only a single beam over 5m long and with an average section of 140 x 140 mm holds the floor up.   The wall that was holding one end of the floor boards has moved away by about 125mm.  And then to make the problem worse there was a cast iron bath right in middle.

sloping floor in old bathrom

Slope on floor around 75mm in 1200mm

 The floor was packed out with any old bits of timber with chipboard over the top.  I had spotted this  prior to buying the cottage but the extent of the problem came as a bit of a surprise.

Timber supporting beam bent under load
As well as dropping the supporting beam has bent
I’ve spent hours head scratching before I decided to get a bit technical and start measuring up the full extent of deflections and movement.  Many measurement and levels have been added to a series of sketches so I can do more head scratching at home. 
Wall bowed away from floor boards
Wall under the cruck collar has bowed away from the floor
The wall originally provided some support for the floor. They parted company many years ago and left the floor with a bath on it dangling in mid air.
 
Plans for a solution are beginning to formulate. So far I think I’ll be off to the woods and picking a tree to make an additional beam.
 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2012 at 7:12 pm and is filed under I do DIY stuff, I do PROPERTY stuff, Whitby Cottage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Whitby Cottage Floor in need of Support”

  1. Larch, pine or maybe we’ve found a use for the fallen red oak?

  2. No that’s earmarked for the panneling in our front room. When I’ve got a couple of minutes spare.

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