Bounce Bounce?

[gemi_babe]

Hello boys...

My friend has this house right , and when your sitting on the lounge and the dog walks in the room, you bounce on the couch.

It's on stumps, carpet over floorboards.
What could this be?
And is it serious?

:confused:

[Termite]

A dog that big is definitely dangerous.

[mikey]

Gemi,

Is it a big dog?

Sounds like a stumping issue or it may be that span of the bearer (s) is too long between stumps - Is there an obvious bow in the floor? If you have access underneath then you can check it out. We are currently deciding whether to pull up a couple of rows of floor boards and add support to remove a slight bounce and creak.

Sorry for stating the obvious.

Cheers
Mike

[bitingmidge]

What could this be?

Get a smaller dog?

[bitingmidge]

Oh alright....if the bounce is that bad, it's almost certainly a stump (or two that needs replacing).

IF the stumps have just moved on their foundations (slowly sinking into the mire, or on reactive clay soil which has dried out), you can probably do a long-term temporary fix by packing the bearers up with a bit of fibro, or a brick if it's that bad, but there's no substitute for replacing the stumps and doing it properly!

Now it could also be rot in the ends of the bearers, termites in the joists, joists and bearers terminally undersized, or a combination of all of the above.

First thing to do is to go under the house and see if there's an air gap between the bearer and the stumps, or the joists and the bearer, then come back!!

Cheers,

P

[gemi_babe]

LOL @ the horse

Hi Mike, She is a staffy and weighs 17kg

I do have access under the house, the floor seems reasonably flat no obvious slope or rise.

House was restumped about 3 years ago......so they tell me

Ok I'm going under, call the cops if I don't return within 30mins. It means those rats have gotten me

[craigb]

Could also be that the bearers or joists need packing.

Get somebody to walk over the floor while you're under the house and check for any movement.

[silentC]

I live in a house just like this, except it is my 3yo son belting through in pursuit of his sister that makes the bookshelves fall over.

In my case, it is simply a matter of under-engineering of the joists. The piers are solid, it's just that they are too few and far between and so the bearers flex. The joists are spanning too far for their size and so the whole thing is like a trampoline.

The solution for me is to add new bearers in between the existing ones to reduce the span of the joists. I'll be doing this as a part of a general upgrade under the house - reinforcing the bearers by bolting a steel beam to each bearer and replacing the brick piers with steel posts.

[gemi_babe]

ok here's what I saw without even crawling under the house.

The first stump doesn't have anything sitting on it. So I'm guessing this would be the same problem over towards the lounge room.

I don't want to go crawling under the house. It's spooky and the size of the cobwebs are massive. Hate to see what they are hiding in them.

Is this a costly job to fix?

Good to see that all my stumps have black stuff on em

I live in a mining town, the after shock of the blasting is a low 30-50 second rumble, I guess this would affect the stumps and the house would slowly sink? LOL

As long as I get 10 yrs out of the place, I will be happy.

[craigb]

The first stump doesn't have anything sitting on it.

Can you clarify that a bit Gemi?

Does it a least have a timber passing over the top of it even if it's not making contact with the stump?

Craig

[gemi_babe]

Yes it has the bearer or the joist about 5-10mm above it.

[craigb]

Well it's an easy fix then.

All you need are some fibro (or Hardiplank I suppose these days) packing pieces inserted between the barers and the stumps.

Maybe a half day's work for someone if you don't fancy doing it yourself .

[namtrak]

You may need a termite cap over the stump and under the bearer? Are termites a problem locally? Are there caps on the other stumps?

[gemi_babe]

Yep namtrak they all have there ant caps on and black skirts pulled up LOL

Ok anyone live close by and wanna earn some cash?

8-}


Ah worth a try isn't it?

[Kev Y.]

From experience (recent) dont attempt any restumping work yourself, I found a local stump contractor to come look and give me some idea what I was up against..

Short story, house was moving slowly to the roadway, stumps were back-filled with 50mm of dirt, no antcaps, in places no sole plates, and none of the stumps were attached to the bearers!

All up it cost me $6000 and a week having the stumpers under the house.

as far as I am concerned it was money well spent

Kev