My Garage Wall Is Racked How Do I Get It Plum Again
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| Hi all, My detached 2 car garage is leaning about 2" toward the back because the exterior just has siding and the interior has no covering at all. I want to get somebody to straighten the garage out before I put up plywood sheathing, but I've only found one company in my area that specifically lists this kind of work. Who else should I contact to get estimates and what do you think this sort of job would cost on average? I'm hoping it will be fairly inexpensive as the studs are fully accessible on the interior of the garage and the lean isn't that bad, but what do I know Thanks. |
07-23-2009, 05:55 AM 
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| I would be careful about paying a big amount for something a couple of guys with a come along could do in an afternoon. Good luck. |
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| Leaning 2" out in what perspective? Are you talking the error in plumb measured at the top or where. How bad is it really? Is this puppy like the Leaning Tower of Pizza or what? How many directions are affected? You can just take a heavy vehicle, or winch and just attempt to pull the structure into a different plane. But that will probably not work without some additional internal bracing / stiffening to make it stay in that plane. It will just work it's back to the present condition if not fully corrected. No clue as to costs, only a foggy clue as to the problem scope and potential corrections. I guess you are talking about first pulling and holding the garage into proper alignment and then covering the interior walls with plywood to give the necessary rigidity to stay as corrected. Maybe some extra framing banding at some intervals / extra studs in the corners to tie all the plywood into a working stiff interior. Same basic problem that occurs in new home construction where once the wall framing is up alignment / plumb is checked, temporary bracing is installed and the additional work completed to get the structure a rigid final shape that will remain square / plumb once the temporary bracing is removed. Figure the costs of the plywood / lumber, some labor rate appropiate to your area for a rough estimate. You neglected to give even the most basic aspects of the problem and expect us to be accurate. Come on. $17,432.17 for a wild opening guess, accurate to within the penny. |
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| I did this once and we used a come a long on both sides to control it.Then temporary braced until the permanent braces could go in.It happened after a lower side of garage was blown outward in a hurricane. Floor Jacks used to lift the wall alsothen screw jack used to hold until studs repalced. |
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| Quote: I would be careful about paying a big amount for something a couple of guys with a come along could do in an afternoon. Good luck. Thanks. I've got a couple calls out and I hope/expect to hear back that it will be fairly inexpensive since, as you say, this isn't a huge effort. But, to be on the safe side, I thought I'd get some other opinions. Quote: I did this once and we used a come a long on both sides to control it.Then temporary braced until the permanent braces could go in.It happened after a lower side of garage was blown outward in a hurricane. Floor Jacks used to lift the wall alsothen screw jack used to hold until studs repalced. Fortunately, my situation sounds much less severe. The sill plate still looks firmly attached to the foundation and is level as is the top plate. It's just that 50+ years of weather on a garage with little to hold it rigid have taken their toll. Quote: Leaning 2" out in what perspective? Are you talking the error in plumb measured at the top or where. How bad is it really? Is this puppy like the Leaning Tower of Pizza or what? How many directions are affected? You can just take a heavy vehicle, or winch and just attempt to pull the structure into a different plane. But that will probably not work without some additional internal bracing / stiffening to make it stay in that plane. It will just work it's back to the present condition if not fully corrected. No clue as to costs, only a foggy clue as to the problem scope and potential corrections. I guess you are talking about first pulling and holding the garage into proper alignment and then covering the interior walls with plywood to give the necessary rigidity to stay as corrected. Maybe some extra framing banding at some intervals / extra studs in the corners to tie all the plywood into a working stiff interior. Same basic problem that occurs in new home construction where once the wall framing is up alignment / plumb is checked, temporary bracing is installed and the additional work completed to get the structure a rigid final shape that will remain square / plumb once the temporary bracing is removed. Figure the costs of the plywood / lumber, some labor rate appropiate to your area for a rough estimate. You neglected to give even the most basic aspects of the problem and expect us to be accurate. Come on. $17,432.17 for a wild opening guess, accurate to within the penny. I apologize for not being more precise in my post. The garage is 2" out of plumb with the lean being toward the back of the garage. It is also slightly (< 1") out of plumb side to side towards the right. I measured this by putting my 24" level's end on the floor against a stud and holding it plumb and then measuring the distance between the top of the level and the stud. I did this at various points around the garage and found that front-to-back the distance was always around .5" thus giving 2" out of plumb for the full 8' height and the side-to-side distance was always a little under .25" thus giving under 1" for the full height. I've read online about a couple different ways this can be corrected and they don't seem incredibly labor intensive, but it's not something I feel comfortable doing myself (plus I don't have any friends to help me with this, or in general Thanks for the replies! |
) so I figured I'd hire somebody to straighten it out and then put up plywood sheathing around the interior to make it nice and rigid so we won't have this problem again.| | |||
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| Is the garage on a concrete slab? If so, is the slab sloping, too? Where I'm from, most garage floors are built with some sort of slope. Well, maybe not a detached garage, but I'm not sure. |
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| If you don't have experience I would hire someone. It shouldn't be a large job but the reason why must be corrected and done right this timeJust putting up plywood sheets may or may not be the real problem.If so usual this type of support is done on the outside at each corner.That is a big tilt so I would be careful as it indicates a real structural problem most likely. |
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| I would probably look for someone that has some experience doing this, and a track record. While it may not appear to be a hard job, if done wrong, you may end up with a flat garage. Worse yet, it could become flat with someone under it. |
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| This reminds me that I have a well pump house that is leaning to one side. This small building is quite heavy I'm sure as the roof is asphalt shingles and the outside walls are stuccoed. I plan to dig under the lower side and use house moving jacks to raise that side. After the side is returned to its normal height, I will then reinforce the inside unfinished wall studs, and the box sill if I can get to it. |
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| If the garage is basically just a studed wall with a roof, it may not have enough rigidity and it is sort of normal to be out of square, maybe start to lean a bit. Basically just a big open shell. Whatever you do to stiffen it up will help. Putting plywood on the inside walls will help. Strenghtening the corners with sistered up studs. The thing that will help a lot is to run joist like members across at the wall cap plates about like joists are normally used. If the end of those can be tied to both the wall top plate and ends of the rafters where they pass over the top plate will give a lot of internal bracing. Cross bracing over those joist crossing member especially in the corners with additional 2 x 4 or whatever laid flat on top and nailed to form angles across the four corners will do a lot more good. You want to keep it totally square especially at the tops of the walls, then it can not rack out of shape in any direction. Being able to tie all the framing together in all 3 planes is critical. The amount of internal bracing and stiff'n does not need to be that great, how it is done is important. You got to pull and hold it into shape, prior to start of installation of any of the stiffening. It is the same basic problem faced in building most structures but in this case it was allowed to go for a long time without enough rigidity instead of the few hours / days that most structures are vulnerable. |
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