All Forum Posts by: Connor O'Brien

There is a free cic webinar to discuss this:

https://www.cicchicago.com/pro...

My 1880s Chicago home doesn’t have a traditional sill plate but rather a 12x12 beam that sits on the foundation. I too worried about this in the beginning but I’ve since seen other buildings with similar construction. 

I’ve worked in Hammond for the past 5 years- it’s an manufacturing town with 2-4 light industrial plants (Cargill, Unilever) and also serves as the inland neighbor to BP whiting (the largest oil refinery in the Midwest). When oil is booming you’ll see many Craigslist ads for seasonal worker lodging. 

@Chris Bernardo my inspector didn’t actually even go in the crawl space because we didn’t have access. I’d like to think a good Inspector would catch that tho. I paid a structural engineer a couple hundred bucks to come do an evaluation later

That fear is something I think everyone struggles with! I would search around for a good inspector with old build experience and I’m sure you’ll be fine

John has much more experience than I do so I’d stick to his advice- I did purchase an 1880s frame a couple years ago and it has served me well so far. In addition to staying away from oddball carpentry I’d look for one with updates completed in the last 50-100 years. Mine was under pinned sometime in that time frame. Originally It was supported by tree trucks with out footers for the center beam support! Interior was also rehabbed in 2008 so electric and plumbing was already updated. This was huge and if I buy another frame I’ll be looking for something similar

Do you typically pour new footers for the new post? 

I decided to leave mine the way it is for now

I would talk to an engineer first- I used Jonathan from engikeering. Crack attack will do the physical work once the engineer specified it. Unfortunately they’ll probably tell you the structure is inadequate but you gotta remember it’s probably been there for 100+years and engineering standards have changed quite a bit. 

I was recommended “the crack attack team” by the engineer I was using. They actually came out and were ready to complete the work but didn’t go through with it since we both agreed my tile might crack. The owner of the company came out and looked at it personally later on- he gave me a new quote but said I would be fine for foreseeable future. Long story short I never ended up using them but they seemed like a very honest company at the very least