Floor Joist Question
My father is an architect from out of state who is helping us with our brownstone renovation. He doesn’t have any experience with old townhouses and asked me to find out some info about how these buildings are usually framed. Our place is an 1899 3-story, 20′ wide brownstone in Bed-Stuy. Do the floor joists…
My father is an architect from out of state who is helping us with our brownstone renovation. He doesn’t have any experience with old townhouses and asked me to find out some info about how these buildings are usually framed. Our place is an 1899 3-story, 20′ wide brownstone in Bed-Stuy. Do the floor joists usually run from side to side, or from front to back? Can anyone recommend a book or website that details the way in which brownstones were built? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Your dad should’ve known this by just looking at the walls. Are you sure he doesn’t have more specific questions about joist or beam spacing? That’s where one usually finds inconsistencies in older brownstones.
Most residential construction books will have info on these type of buildings, however building practices do change from area to area. Your better off hiring an engineer in the area and have him/her tell you whats up.
Floor josts typically run side to side in both brick and frame rowhouses. Larger timbers/joists normally frame out the stair openings and the fireplace flues.
The “hall wall” is typically load bearing so if you want to remove it you will have to provide alternate structural support. (Remember that in many multi-family rowhouses the fire-rated hall is required for egress so it cannot be removed.)
If you are doing major work you should open up some of your ceilings to see what your particular condition is.
I’ve never heard of joists running other than side to side. There is often another support running from front to back – look at your cellar for support posts. And be careful about removing walls upstairs that run front to back with shoring up support.
Joists cannot run completely to side masonry wall where stairway is located. So be especially careful about removing front to back wall parellel to staircases.
In most cases, the joists run from side to side, using the masonry side walls as supports. The joists rest in pockets in the masonary walls (i.e., brick walls). That’s how it is in my townhouse. Of course, there’s always a chance that the joists run the other way.
Another way of checking is that the sub-floor runs perdenticular to the joists. Again, there could be problems in checking it this way too. For example, if your original sub-floors were removed and replaced with plywood, it would be difficult to make this determination.
If you have long floor boards as your sub-floor, then the joists almost certainly run perpendicular to them.
when we had our house inspected by an engineer, he gave us a lesson on how the house is framed. He totally understood and was able to explain it well. His name is Joe Pasaturo from AVT Engineering (www.avtinspect.com)…he offered at one point to come back to our house when renovations began (for a fee) and explain it from an engineering perspective…I’m sure he’d do that for you as well and it could be money well spent.
There’s also a show on either HGTV or DIY called Back to the Blueprint that did a show on how Brownstones are framed, as did Bob Villa. You might check to see if you can get those shows sent to you on vhs.