"Michael McNeil" wrote in message
om...
"David W.E. Roberts" wrote in message
...


Which leads me to wonder how level joists are in new buildings, and in
old
buildings which have settled over the years....

About the same if its a new starter home built on pricework. (Never
buy the first one in a plot, come back and see how the first few
buyers feel.)

Thanks for all the replies, I'll answer to all the posts here rather than
reply to each individually

I'm going to take Bigwallop's advise and remove the old joist and replace it
with new. My only concern about this is that it looks like it might be
tricky to get a joist exactly the same size (the existing ones are 2.5" x
6.25"ish), so I'm considering installing two 2" joists to replace the old
one i.e repair the holes left and install one each side of the original
position. I quite like this idea as I can run further joists if required
between other joists in the floor if I think they need reinforcing.
Regarding joist hangers, I'm not sure how I could angle the joists into the
hangers if the boards are still in place upstairs, it seems easier to remove
the boards (the room is empty, there's no carpet of anything) and then drop
the joists in from above. I can then take my time chiselling out the corners
to get the joist(s) level with the others.

A couple of things I'm not clear about - when installing the hangers into a
brick wall, do they have to be bolted? Or is it sufficient to cut a small
chase into the wall, slot the hanger in place and apply some mortar? The
other ends of the joists have to be fitted to hangers that are fitted to the
joist running across the fireplace, I presume I need to find some sort of
hooked hanger that will hook over the joist. I had a look in a timber yard
over the weekend and they had some that had long ends which can be bent over
but they didn't look that strong. Are there stronger ones available or is
there a better way of doing this?

The question about Rentokil and why they didn't see this problem, I can only
guess about this but I think that the true extent of the damage was only
visible once the ceiling downstairs was removed. I'm pretty content with the
job they did, at least they didn't try to pull the wool over my eyes by
telling me the whole house needed excessive treatment...