madbaker | coulda been *much* worse.

One of the joys of living in a 90-year old house (that was jacked up and moved 50 years ago) is the random creaking and settling that inevitably occurs. Yesterday we (being the four inhabitant/owners) had a panic session because what appeared to be imminent structural collapse.

Spoiler: it wasn't, or I wouldn't be updating my LiveJournal now.

The side of our garage that borders our stairwell is lined with thin corrugated metal nailed into the studs. We've been planning to eventaully rip it down and replace with sheetrock or particle board, and put up shelving for our tourney lumber. Anyway, my wife noticed a significant bulge where the metal had ripped itself out. When the upstairs neighbors returned yesterday, we pointed it out - they called the curvy neighbor's dad, who has done restoration and is knowledgeable about that sort of thing, and the panic commenced. See, the most likely reason for it was imminent supporting wall failure...

He came over with tools and we started peeling away metal. The supporting wall studs look vertical and unharmed. Whew!

We did put up some 4x4 posts in the garage to jack up one of the supporting beams a bit, because it has a knothole split that may be the cause of a significant bump in our study floor. But that's relatively minor!

So, our corrugated metal replacement project is moving ahead a bit more quickly than anticipated. That's okay. It's much better than worrying about our house falling down!