Reinforcing the Oriel

Interior

Supporting the Cantilever

This is one of those projects...a project that may not even need to be done...a project that when done,  only those who read this post will ever know it had been done... just one of those projects!  Let's get into it. 

What's an Oriel?

Just for fun...an oriel is not a bird. It’s a bay window that doesn’t have a foundation. Instead, it cantilevers or hangs from a wall, often with brackets or corbels below. Quite simply, an oriel is commonly called a bumpout these days.  Just so we're all clear, a cantilever is generally used in construction to refer to a structure that only has support on one end.  "One end of a cantilevered balcony is attached to a building's structure, but the other end seems to mysteriously hang in space. There is support for cantilevers, and the weight is usually held by the wall on one end and a beam in the middle," Century 21.

Here's What's Happening

So 173 has a cantilevered oriel, what's the problem?  Well, there's an area of flooring with a little hump to it with some gapping between some of the boards in front of the radiator in the dining room. 

I think it was there when we came to 173, but it wasn't a big deal so I didn't give it much thought.  But lately I've been taking mental inventory of what would need to be done if we want to have the floors refinished.  Curious as to the cause of the hump,  I did some sleuthing down in the workshop to see what I could see.   What I found, while not a big problem,  it's a problem nonetheless. 

Here's the Problem

So here's the problem...when 173 was built as a wedding gift for the Moshers back in 1926, while the whole world was in the depths of the great depression.   During the Depression day labor was aplenty and, as the story goes,  anyone walking by looking to make some money, may have been hired to help in the construction of 173.  That story bears out in a lot of ways throughout the house. There are details details here at 173 that clearly show some non-professionals contributed to the building, and that they were trying to save money anywhere they could by using scrap boards or just calling it "close enough."  

[During the Great Depression] the average American family lived by the Depression-era motto: “Use it up, wear it out, make do or do without.” Many tried to keep up appearances and carry on with life as close to normal as possible while they adapted to new economic circumstances. - Life for the Average Family During the Great Depression, Lindsey Konkel

For instance, one of the bedroom closets has a completely crooked door frame.  To accommodate that, they cut the door crooked so it would fit.  My guess is they grabbed two boards that were "close enough." 

And that's how they built that closet door.  Over the years I've considered fixing that door, but it's just cosmetic and, really - it's just part of the story of 173.  The same holds true when it comes to the oriel, except I think it best to do something about this one. 

When I started looking around in the workshop to figure out why the floorboards in the dining room were kind of bumping out a little bit, I discovered that the boards that cantilevered out into the oriel were very short.

 

It was clear that the builder used whatever scrap boards were available and seemed to be close enough, regardless of length.  The boards had been sistered to the main joists, but how far into the house they ran was a bit of a craps shoot.  That's because each of the joists for the oriel are of different lengths, with only one of them being the proper length according to most construction codes. 

For cantilevered decks, sistered joists should extend back into the house's floor at least twice the length of the cantilever overhang, following the "1/3 rule" or local building codes.  - Exploring the Principles of Cantilever Structures in an Open Joist Floor System, Katherine Masse

Because of that, it seems that over the years, the oriel had settled, causing the cantilevered joists to angle up a little bit, so that the top of the board was pressing up on the dining room floor, in turn causing that little bit of a hump.

And you can see that here where I circled in red the amount of travel that had occurred over the years, those boards should be even one with another. Then, in the blue circle, you can see where the corner of that cantilevered joist is pressing up against the bottom of the dining room floor.  

The Plan

The plan was simplicity itself. The first part was to use architectural screws to secure the sistered boards to the floor joists in a much more secure way so, even though I don't think they had sagged in many years, the sistered boards will no longer be able to because of the strength of these screws. 

Based on information on the GRK website, GRK architectural screws, particularly the RSS Rugged Structural Screw, are engineered for strength, ease of installation, and resistance to splitting, featuring patented designs like the W-Cut thread and Zip-Tip for no-pre-drilling and a CEE thread to enlarge the hole and reduce splitting.

I don't know what most of that means, but the numbers indicate that these are pretty strong screws! 

First Step Done

Anyway, now that I knew what the problem with the dining room floor was, a plan kind of fell in place.   I don't mean to get into incidental minutia but in this case it gives me an opportunity to show a gratuitous shot (or two) of my workshop! 

All that just to say... before I could start on fixing this problem, I needed to clean off my bench because I'd have to climb on it to work on the sistered joists.

Once the bench was cleared off I climbed up and put four or five GRKs into each joist!  I think they're done traveling.

Next Step - Failure

Because the top corners at the end of the sistered joists were pressing up against the floorboards, I thought that if I cut off that corner of each board  that would allow the subfloor up above to settle back down to rest on the joists.  so I took my reciprocating saw. And use a length of list of eliminated the laminated flooring as a depth guide and cut off the corner.  The cjoyce period 

And amazingly, after an hour on my knees on top of the workbench - neck twisted and turned at add angles, trimming the top corners...absolutely nothing happened.  And when I say nothing, I mean, absolutely nothing.  The floor didn't settle even a smidge. 

So, I cleaned everything up, put my tools away, and decided that when it does come time to refinish the floors we'll just have to figure out what to do at that point. But for now, that's it.  In total defeat, I surrendered on this little project.  But, at least we know the cantilevered joists won't be moving anymore!

Hey,  thanks for stopping by - see ya' next time!