Hahaha I love it. Wood? That can’t possibly be important. No way.
Just extra pieces of wood! So lazy to leave them there!
Yeah, for me it was the “extra pieces of wood”… hilarious
This kills the structure.
Wait…wait. Did he cut through the floor joists in order to inset the pipe?
Yes. Yes he did
Why…why would he not just use u-brackets to attach the pipe to the joists??!
Steve don’t know anything but he did it for love.
That divorce is going to be glorious.
He’s going to laugh last when she keeps the house
Pretty sure he’ll just slice it down the middle and take his half.
👷♂️🍿
My dipshit contractor did something similar.
Me, before demo on a big remodel: “Hey, if you could get rid of these soffits, (on the first floor, with a lot of weight above them) that would be cool.”
Them: " Yeah, after we get it open we’ll take a look and let you know."
I swing by a couple days later and this is how they rerouted things that were in the soffits, without saying anything to me.
So anyway, I’m in litigation now.
America, where houses are built out of wood and there’s no such thing as insulation.
There’s parts of the country where it doesn’t regularly get cold enough for insulation to really matter.
That said, my house in the Chicago suburbs is over 140 years old and was definitely never insulated underneath. By the feel of the walls in the winter any insulation that was in there has probably all collapsed as well.
What is your house made of, if not wood?
Brick, cement.
Well known for their insulative properties.
Yes, the bricks have holes in them, after building they are filled with air, which insulates. And often for the outer shell 2 walls are built with an “air” wall in between which used to be just air but now is filled with insulation materials.
Even a brick house has wood in the walls, roof, and joists.
There is the old, classic cinder block home, as laid out in a vintage Popular Mechanics publication. You can find it on the Internet Archive & the other archive.
Slabs are generally not great, for repairs. I prefer a basement, but you do you.
Even a brick house has wood in the walls, roof, and joists.
No, no it doesn’t. Or at at it doesn’t have to. Wood is definitely not standard building material in all countries.
No, it doesn’t. Roof? Sometimes. Anywhere else? No.
Wooden walls? Like a fucking tree house XD
Wow, you sure are confidently incorrect. There’s paneling, wainscoting, and shiplap to name a few appliqués. Some people even build false walls to install pipes, cables, or extra insulation. It also helps with hanging things like TV’s or family photos. Not like a fucking tree house XD. Additionally, some old brick buildings you can’t modify due to historic building codes so the only way to “modify” the structure is to build around it.
What’s wrong with wood? Please excuse my ignorance
Nothing much, really. It’s just that in Europe we build houses out of concrete, which is better. Especially if You consider environmental hazards, which the states have more of, than we do.
wood
You can’t get obscene and unsustainable shitbox bungalow sprawl without using fires favourite food. Everything else is uncapitalist.
Have you heard about brutalist apartment blocks? Row upon row of huge concrete and glass buildings with little green spaces. American style suburbs are less efficient but much easier on the eyes and not directly a capitalism issue. More of a cultural aesthetic.
Ah yes, the two architectural styles: consumerist and commieblock.
Concrete apartment blocks are a very capitalism fixture. Shoving a much poor people into an area as possible to extract more rent since each apartment has to be cheap enough for them to sorta afford it.
I remember being a kid and watching a few films where people fall over and put holes in the walls; I was so confused. I didn’t understand how people could put holes in bricks using their arms and legs.
thats just drywall. its shit but a lot of cheap builds use it.
its shit but a lot of cheap builds use it.
Wait… What do you use to cover your (non stone) walls??? Is there some sort of beadboard or shiplap supremacy group I’ve never heard of?
yeah every place I lived in in Europe had brick walls for every wall
I wonder how they repaired that, and who paid.
Remove pipe, replace the house, reinstall pipe.
Remove owner, remove pipe, replace the house, reinstall pipe, install new owner, otherwise it and even worse things will keep happening again. I’d hate to see how it’s wired.
Physics will ultimately win.
Hypothetically speaking, if he just cut a whole big enough for the pipe to go through how much better would it have been?
A lot. Most of the strength from a beam comes from the top and bottom, because these are the parts that have to stretch or compress most when the beam is bending. The middle part is contributing relatively little for strength.
That is why metal poles are often hollow, that saves a lot of material and weight without losing much strength.
Assuming it’s centered vertically and not too close to the ends, then the joists would still have essentially full strength. Because the top and bottom are seeing compression and tension, there’s an area in the middle that’s not so critical.
No, no they wouldn’t. In the UK there are very strict rules about notching or putting holes in wooden joists. Precisely because it weakens them.
Full joist the load is spread through all the fibres of the timber. Drill a big hole in the middle and the load only goes through the top and the bottom fibres. So essentially it’s as strong as those two blocks of fibers. So why not make the joist just that thin the the first place then? The answer is because it’s nowhere near as strong.
There are various steel, composite and wooden joists with a special frame construction that can have hollow sections. A standard piece of timber with a big hole drilled in the middle of it is not one of them
Much better. Imagine you’re bending something. The maximum tension is going to be at the very bottom and the max compression is going to be at the very top (this is why steel I-beams are shaped the way the are - to put the most material in the areas doing the most work). If you can put the hole in the middle you’re not impacting the structural integrity of the joist too much. You’d still have to worry about shear forces so you’d not want the hole to be too close to either end. Look up “castellated beam” if you want to see some steel examples.
A joist hole can be no more than 1/3rd the total depth of the joist, I think that pipe is larger than that. Even if you placed it in the very middle you’d still be compromising the structural integrity.
Best to just get some hangers and a fix it to the bottom; you’re still well clear of the ground. Put in some shims near one end if it’s a drain and you have to maintain pitch; I think this is a thick electrical conduit though?
EDIT: nope that looks like 4” PVC drain pipe
Why not just use hangers? No way a metal bracket doesnt exist for hanging pipe from joists. DIY some metal wire and a screw to hold it if you have to, hang that sucker like fresh venison, but why cut existing structures?
It’s not structure, it’s just extra wood
I meant structure as in existing stuff, not ‘structural’ as in load-bearing. Extra wood would indeed still count as ‘structure’ within the context I meant.
This is, however, not just extra wood. What was cut through in the picture is floor joists, which are what holds up the flooring and supports whatever is on the floor, including people and furniture. Cutting these joists severely compromised the integrity of the floor. Now instead of a squeak from stepping in that spot, it’s far more likely that a loud crack followed by a fall through the floor will be the result of a heavy step.
No no no, I was being sarcastic, because this is indeed structural and not the way the text in the photo described it
100% a better way of doing it. I was just trying to answer the question of notching versus drilling a hole.
The text might be bait, but this seems like an awful lot of trouble for a joke. Someone probably did do this and someone took a picture to show it off.
What particular brand of OCD do you need to have to care so deeply about the pipes under your house being clean that you would do this?
