Structural Construction

The signs that a house has a structural problem

Owners usually notice it in small ways first. A door that used to close now sticks at the top corner. A marble rolls across the dining room floor. Cracks open in the plaster above the windows. The floor near the middle of the house dips, or the kitchen floor feels soft in front of the sink.

In the basement, the picture gets clearer. A carrying beam that sags between posts. Steel columns rusted at the base, or old wood posts sitting on dirt. Sills along the top of the foundation that crumble when you push a screwdriver into them. Fieldstone walls with loose stones or a section bulging inward. Any of these is worth a look, and a few of them are urgent.

Older Massachusetts houses have been carrying their loads for a long time, often after decades of earlier remodels that cut joists for plumbing or pulled a post to open up a basement. Most of the structural trouble we see comes from water, time, or someone in the past making a change without thinking about load.

Insects deserve a mention too. Carpenter ants and termites often follow the same water that rots a sill, and damage from them can run further along a joist or a plate than it looks from the outside. We check for live infestation and tell you if a pest professional should be involved before we close anything up.

Finding the cause before choosing the repair

A sagging floor can be a beam too small for its span, a post that has sunk, a joist notched for a drain line, or a sill that rotted because a gutter dumped on it for decades. Each needs a different fix. Jacking a floor back up without dealing with the reason it dropped means it drops again.

We start by opening up enough to see. That might mean pulling a section of basement ceiling, probing the sills, or digging beside a post to find out what it actually sits on. For anything beyond routine repair, a structural engineer looks at it and specifies the fix, and the building department reviews that design under the permit. Structural work on one- and two-family homes in Massachusetts falls under the Construction Supervisor License, which Steve holds without restriction.

Then you get the findings in plain words: what is wrong, why it happened, what the engineer recommends, and what the repair involves for you and the house.

We also tell you what we would not do. If a repair someone else proposed will not address the cause, or if a lighter fix would serve the house just as well, you hear that from us directly.

Rooms above the repair get cleared of anything fragile, and you know ahead of time which days will be loud.

Shoring the house while the repair happens

You cannot replace a beam while it is still holding up the house. Before anything carrying load comes out, temporary support goes in: shoring walls or adjustable posts on solid bearing, placed so the load has somewhere to go while the old member is removed.

Lifting a sagged floor is done slowly. Pushing a house back up too fast cracks plaster, pops tile and racks door frames. A floor that took decades to settle is brought back gradually, and sometimes it is better to stop short of dead level and stabilize it where it sits than to tear up the finished rooms above. We talk that trade-off through with you before the first jack goes in.

If you are living in the house during the work, we plan around it. Rooms above the repair get cleared of anything fragile, and you know ahead of time which days will be loud.

Shoring sometimes has to land outside the area you expected. A post in the basement may need a temporary pad poured or a plank spread across the slab, and a shoring wall upstairs may mean moving furniture out of a room for a few days. We lay that out before the work starts.

Sills, carrying beams and fieldstone walls

Rotted sills are common in older homes, especially where the grade outside sits too high or gutters have overflowed for years. Replacing them means supporting the wall above, cutting out the bad section, installing new pressure-treated sill with a barrier against the masonry, and anchoring the wall back down. Finding the water source is part of the job, or the new sill goes the same way as the old one.

Failed carrying beams get replaced or sistered with members the engineer sizes, set on posts with real footings poured beneath the slab. A post standing on a thin basement floor is not on a footing, no matter how long it has been there.

Fieldstone foundations are their own subject. Many have stood well for a century or more, but mortar washes out, stones loosen, and walls can bow under frost and water pressure. Depending on what the engineer finds, the answer might be repointing, rebuilding a section, adding a concrete wall inside the old one, or underpinning. We do not oversell the big fix when a smaller one is right, and we do not patch a wall that needs more.

Floor joists that were notched or cut for old plumbing get sistered or headed off, and joists that have cracked over a long span get reinforced the way the engineer directs.

What you hear from us during structural work

Structural repair carries more unknowns than most work, which is exactly why communication matters on it. Steve started Modern Remodeling after years of working for guys that lacked communication, and structural jobs are where that gap costs owners the most.

You get photos of what we find when the ceiling or the sill is opened. You get the engineer's recommendation explained to you instead of handed over. If the damage runs further than it looked, you hear that day, with a written price for the added work before we continue. Inspections are booked in advance and you know when the inspector is coming.

When the work is finished and inspected, we close it up and leave the area clean. Keep the engineer's design and the permit paperwork with your house records; they matter when you sell, or when the next contractor opens that ceiling.

If you are seeing sagging, cracking or soft spots, call (781) 974-4263 and have Steve look at it before it gets worse.

See the rest of our construction work, or browse the gallery for rooms we have finished.