- Joined
- Aug 24, 1999
- Messages
- 933
Okay...well, I've made some progress on the workbench that I've been doing, and--as expected--it's turning into a Frankenbench. I pretty much expected that, though 
. However, as the wife and I started cleaning up the garage (she's doing it to gather stuff for a garage sale, I'm working more to clear space and rearrange my shop area), I found huge expanses of wall that were rotted and had been chewed through. This is due to the high population of squirrels and feral cats in the neighbourhood, who apparently ALL winter up in my garage (D'OH!! 
). It should be noted that my garage is, to start with, all but falling down, anyway. The roof is sway-backed, the whole thing appears to be sinking into the ground (it slopes, impossibly, AGAIN the grade of the ground it sits on--very Dali-esque), but it appears to have been built out of oak...and some other stuff, lol. It's what I've got, though, and there's no WAY I can just tear it down and start over. So, to continue:
"No problem," thinks I, "I can cut those sections out and patch 'em up. No point in getting too involved in fixing up this old shack of a garage, it's all but falling down, anyway!"
*Sigh* the Spidey-sense shoulda gone off, then. Well, so anyway, I continued clearing out along the wall, so that I had a clean space to work on as I patched up the wall. What I found was, the genius that built the garage in the first place apparently used the concrete floor as rough guide for framing the rest of the building, but not as a foundation. All of the wall studs (which look to be oak, at least) are--er, WERE sunk directly into the ground. I say were because it looks like at least three of them have rotted away completely and no longer even TOUCH the ground.\
"Well," thinks I, "That escalated quickly."
So, the question is this: Is there ANYTHING I can do, at this late stage of the game, to fix this? I mean, sure, I can cut out the rotten timber and replace it, but I'm still going to have a building, built on dirt, with NEW lumber that will rot out, and nothing stopping its Pisa-esque submergence into the dirt. I thought about framing a more sturdy wall INSIDE the existing structure to shore it up, and then tearing off the outside wall and sheathing it once the framing was done, but I get a feeling that I might just be throwing good money after bad, since the garage is in such rough shape, anyway. Any carpenters, handymen, or hobby engineers with a bright idea? If not, does anyone frequent a solid Home Improvement forum that they could aim me at?
As always, thanks for any suggestions you can provide.
. However, as the wife and I started cleaning up the garage (she's doing it to gather stuff for a garage sale, I'm working more to clear space and rearrange my shop area), I found huge expanses of wall that were rotted and had been chewed through. This is due to the high population of squirrels and feral cats in the neighbourhood, who apparently ALL winter up in my garage (D'OH!! ). It should be noted that my garage is, to start with, all but falling down, anyway. The roof is sway-backed, the whole thing appears to be sinking into the ground (it slopes, impossibly, AGAIN the grade of the ground it sits on--very Dali-esque), but it appears to have been built out of oak...and some other stuff, lol. It's what I've got, though, and there's no WAY I can just tear it down and start over. So, to continue:"No problem," thinks I, "I can cut those sections out and patch 'em up. No point in getting too involved in fixing up this old shack of a garage, it's all but falling down, anyway!"
*Sigh* the Spidey-sense shoulda gone off, then. Well, so anyway, I continued clearing out along the wall, so that I had a clean space to work on as I patched up the wall. What I found was, the genius that built the garage in the first place apparently used the concrete floor as rough guide for framing the rest of the building, but not as a foundation. All of the wall studs (which look to be oak, at least) are--er, WERE sunk directly into the ground. I say were because it looks like at least three of them have rotted away completely and no longer even TOUCH the ground.\
"Well," thinks I, "That escalated quickly."
So, the question is this: Is there ANYTHING I can do, at this late stage of the game, to fix this? I mean, sure, I can cut out the rotten timber and replace it, but I'm still going to have a building, built on dirt, with NEW lumber that will rot out, and nothing stopping its Pisa-esque submergence into the dirt. I thought about framing a more sturdy wall INSIDE the existing structure to shore it up, and then tearing off the outside wall and sheathing it once the framing was done, but I get a feeling that I might just be throwing good money after bad, since the garage is in such rough shape, anyway. Any carpenters, handymen, or hobby engineers with a bright idea? If not, does anyone frequent a solid Home Improvement forum that they could aim me at?
As always, thanks for any suggestions you can provide.
