{"id":6,"date":"2013-12-17T03:44:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-17T03:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/?p=6"},"modified":"2015-03-14T13:03:05","modified_gmt":"2015-03-14T13:03:05","slug":"reason-for-bowed-ceiling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/reason-for-bowed-ceiling\/","title":{"rendered":"Reason for bowed ceiling"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

There are a couple reasons for the bowed ceiling.  As I previously mentioned, both the floor and the ceiling sagged like a saucer.  The sag was about 4″ in the center of the room.<\/p>\n

Sag reason #1.  The old 2×8″ oak joists (roughly 16″ on center) spanned almost 16′.  This is undersized for this span (even considering they were oak).  Looking at the span tables, the joists should have been 2×10 – 2×12, depending on the species of lumber.  I would like to state that the 2×8 oak joists were rough sawn and were a full 2″x8″ (more or less, as things were not exactly “standard” back then).<\/p>\n

Sag reason #2.  We were told that previous Amish residents from the past had brought the bathroom facilities inside.  In order to have “running water”, they had rigged up a gravity system where they stored the water upstairs and piped it down to the bathroom below (much like a water tower).  Now with water weighing 8 lbs\/gallon it is very easy to see how even having a 500 gallon tank up there would easily weigh 4000 lbs.  And, if it leaked, that would cause even further warping<\/p>\n

The floor of this room was obviously the ceiling of the 1st floor room below.  I had previously leveled that ceiling by removing the plaster and lath in that room.  Then, instead of doing anything with the existing undersized oak joists, I went to the low point of the ceiling and “sistered” 2×6″ boards onto the existing 2×8 oak joists.  The old joists, over nearly a 100 year time frame had sagged as far as they were going to.  By sistering the new 2×6 joists to these, I actually strengthened the span.  Once the ceiling was level, we installed full length 3\/4″  T&G bead board (which I stained).  We had also redone the walls in this room and wallpapered.<\/p>\n

A photo of the bead board ceiling (in the room below) is shown above.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are a couple reasons for the bowed ceiling.  As I previously mentioned, both the floor and the ceiling sagged like a saucer.  The sag was about 4″ in the center of the room. Sag reason #1.  The old 2×8″ oak joists (roughly 16″ on center) spanned almost 16′.  This is undersized for this span […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/2013-12-15_16-00-53_425.jpg?fit=577%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":73,"url":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/kitchen-ceramic-floor-tiling\/","url_meta":{"origin":6,"position":0},"title":"Kitchen Ceramic Floor Tiling","author":"Ilona","date":"September 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"SubFloor (Structural): In preparation for laying the new 12x12 glazed porcelain floor tiles (1\/4\" thick), I utilized the existing 24\" on center 2x8 joists. To increase the structural capacity, I installed additional 2x8 joists to change it to 12\" on center. To increase the support (due to the original oak\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ceramic tile"","block_context":{"text":"ceramic tile","link":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/category\/ceramic-tile\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":76,"url":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/totally-renovated-kitchen\/","url_meta":{"origin":6,"position":1},"title":"Totally renovated Kitchen","author":"Ilona","date":"September 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in 2000 we did a total kitchen renovation. By major I mean: Totally gutted existing kitchen. Kitchen is 9x20. Tore out existing floor down to the old 2x8 oak joists (below which is dirt crawl space). This enabled easier access to run underfloor plumbing\/electrical and to insulate crawl space.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "kitchen"","block_context":{"text":"kitchen","link":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/category\/kitchen\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4,"url":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/4\/","url_meta":{"origin":6,"position":2},"title":"Rebuilding A Bedroom: The Walls","author":"Handyman","date":"December 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"And now for the walls: Now that the old ceiling has been totally removed and the old oak joists exposed, it was time to remove the old plaster & lath walls.\u00a0 In 2 previous rooms I had done, I left all 4 plastered walls intact and faced them with 1\/4\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remodeling"","block_context":{"text":"remodeling","link":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/category\/remodeling\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5,"url":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/getting-started\/","url_meta":{"origin":6,"position":3},"title":"Getting started","author":"Handyman","date":"December 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"First order of business in beginning this project is to:Get room cleared out of all the stuff that had accumulated in it over the years.\u00a0 Since the room was basically unusable as an occupied space, it became very useful as a dumping ground.\u00a0 We called this room the \"junk room\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":116,"url":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/old-inhabitants\/","url_meta":{"origin":6,"position":4},"title":"Old Inhabitants","author":"Ilona","date":"November 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I tend to have many asides when I tell the tales of the house and the renovation, but I thought you might be entertained by a few stories about former inhabitants of the home. In my 'Flooring' post I didn't fully explain the story of the reservoir. I had met\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "old houses"","block_context":{"text":"old houses","link":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/category\/old-houses\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":70,"url":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/new-kitchen-cabinets-countertop\/","url_meta":{"origin":6,"position":5},"title":"New Kitchen – cabinets, countertop","author":"Ilona","date":"September 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Now that all the major, structural stuff was complete:New floor down to and including the joistsNew ceiling including new raftersNew interior walls and exterior siding including studs, etc.All new plumbing & electricalWe were now ready for the cabinet maker to deliver and install the new cabinets. This is the one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "kitchen"","block_context":{"text":"kitchen","link":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/category\/kitchen\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions\/175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}