The stretch of rotten sill plate was the next piece of the puzzle. The basic premise is pretty straightforward - build a structure of some kind to take the weight off of the existing wall, sawzall out the existing sill plate, smack in a new one, and then reattach everything. Once again, lessons were learned, a few things got broken, a few mistakes got made.
On to the fun!
The first step in the process was to cut open the ceiling to expose the joists, and then I nailed in a temporary top plate.
Next, build a temporary wall and smack it under the top plate with a sledge. Here's what a wall looks like in handy kit form:
Assembled
and smacked into place with a sledge
The first lesson I learned was that 3/4" is a lot more than you can lift a house using just a temporary wall and a sledge. My temporary wall showed its displeasure at the abuse I put on it by bowing seriously and refusing to go all the way to plumb.
I ended up shoring it up with a floor jack, just in case. Once that was in place, I started smacking in steel wedges and a prybar to give me room to get the sawzall in.
Pretty soon, I had one whole section removed!
For some reason, on this first one, I thought it necessary to take the old board out in relatively intact chunks. (The next one, I just ripped it up with a bar and wedges and it went a lot faster... Live and learn.) To this end, I thought it wise to try to remove four-foot chunks. To do that, I had to figure out a clever way to cut through the board, and the first thing I tried was a drill bit of suitable diameter. However, after grinding it quite a bit against the top of the foundation, it pretty quickly stopped being a drill bit.
See, it's supposed to have this shape:
But after a few minutes of high-speed grinding on concrete, it looks like this:
Eventually, I got the whole big chunk out, and it was time to put in the replacement piece. Navigating long bits of lumber through the house is a pain in the ass - there's always something you don't notice in time. After I broke a light fixture (and replaced it and hid the evidence), I got to saw this one to length...
After I smacked it into place with a sledgehamer, I had my assistant drill some holes in the new sill plate and the concrete:
More holes...
And screw in some tapcons...
Pretty soon, that section was done!
The next section to be replaced was on the end of the house. Jim suggested that I'd be able to lift the house from the end using my existing temporary wall, and that the rigidity of the sheathing would allow me to remove the section on the end without further lifting. He ended up being partially right - I could get about halfway down the wall, but not enough to get the whole bad section out. I ended up knocking down my temporary wall and starting over. I didn't think a temporary wall would work very well, as I'd be building it parallel to the existing floor joists, and it'd be hard to get significant lift on the exterior wall that way while still allowing me to get between the support and the wall to replace the sill plate. I decided that I'd be better off getting at the framing of the exterior wall and jacking that as directly as I could.
My first step was to expose the framing in the end of the house and get a substantial hunk of wood under the top plate of the exterior wall. I tied in to three other joists as well, to spread the load around better. Sharp-eyed viewers will note that the big hunks of wood used here used to be decorative faux post-and-beam bits from the kitchen. I guess it pays to be a packrat sometimes.
Next, I hung a plumb bob off of it to help me put the jack in the right place. I have no idea if this was smart or just overly anal - but I kept having images of fingers crushed underneath a wall, so I went with anal.
Next, I installed a similar bit at the other end of the sill plate, and installed a couple of floor jacks under them. I found that I couldn't get the required torque on the wrench, so I stuck a 3 foot piece of black pipe over the end. The guy at the hardware store called the length of pipe "A serious breaker bar. Something will absolutely break."
Naomi said "Daddy! That's a big wrench!"
Action shot!
The house lifted up without incident, and pretty soon, we had another 12 feet of sill plate replaced! I learned a few things on this one - I brought the 12 footer in through the window, I didn't destroy any bits, and I didn't try to gently preserve the rotted plate I was removing. This one went much faster than the first one. Tada!
Then, I gently removed the jacks, and the house is sewn up once again.
Over the next couple of weekends, I'll need to replace the last little chunk of trashed sill plate, and then it's on to wallboard.
