Thread: Restumping house caused serious damage to beam

Hi, I've haven't been able to get anyone to come out and re-stump my house for years. Simply it's to far to travel, as I live in a really remote part of Australia. My house was build in the 1940's, and is constructed of weatherboard, wood and been stumped on logs. Unfortunately over time these wooden log stumps have rotted and caused the house to slop down on the outside walls, which has caused the floors to slop down as well. Basically I have been using small truck hydraulic jacks to raise house and placed temporary stir-ups between log stumps and have gone back and replaced log stumps with cement footings and brick stumps. Everything has gone well until now. The problem: If you could imagine my lounge room is connected to my kitchen like an "L" shape (lounge room is out further than kitchen). The vertical part of the "L" is the wall with a window on it and horizontal part is a wall that connects to wall between Lounge room and Kitchen wall. Both parts are external walls. At the intersection is a stump, which I jacked up the walls and the structural beam (bearer) cracked and broke [shattered]. House is still standing and I have propped up the floors with loose bricks. Now the problem is how do I fix the beam? Its about 60 cm from the end of the beam, just between stumps and centimeters before the stir-up. Can anyone give me some suggestions on what I can do to fix this? Can I just simply cut it out and replace it? Use metal plate to bring it back together? Any ideas would help...

Depending how bad the crack is I would be inclinded to temporarily brace up to the floor joists parallel with the bearer (beam) and well past each end, probably to each stump.
Then I would cut out the cracked section of bearer right back to the middle of each stump and splice in a new section of hardwood bearer using lap joins.

If the crack isn't that bad I would level the cracked bearer then sandwich either side of the bearer some steel C section and bolt it together nice and tight with 12mm bolts, 3 bolts either side of the crack about 100mm apart should do it.

But it really depends on how bad the crack is, can you post a pic?

Andy

Photo of shattered bearer (beam)...

Another photo of shattered beam...

Another photo of shattered beam...

One of the old log stumps...


Have uploaded some pictures of the bearer (beam). Anyone with any ideas of how I can fix this???

Have to say ya must jacked that sucker well up to cause that! Why not just put a new stirrup to the right of the crack and then simply use a gang nail plate over the crack - both sides if you can get access, but one would be enough. Or even with bit of 90x45 HW short spacer on its flat and a stirrup right underneath the crack.

Hey Novice....well versed in some of more mad aspects of housing in your neck of the woods.

I'd use a chunk of heavy flat steel or angle from the dry dump (assuming you have one?) on either side of the break and bolted through both ends of the break....failing that Bloss' suggestion about a chunk of hardwood will work a treat.

One thing you should grab as a consumable for your place is a box or two of 100mm gal Type 17 batten screws and a small pouch of 5mm drill bits. Having a few 75mm and 125mm batten screws will come in handy too.

Grab a few pieces of flat bar or small section RHS from the dry dump too to make spreaders for the jack. Concentrated loads on those old dry timbers does tend to contribute to smashed timbers so use the steels to spread the load.

I cracked one too when I restumped, not a good sound, the steel should help heaps.

Pulse

Thanks everyone on your advise have now replaced bearer and restumping is about half way complete.