Shim Floor Joist Beam

The 4x4 and 6x6 posts that support the girders are now too short by anywhere from 1 8 up to 1 1 4.

Shim floor joist beam.

You were savy enough to flush the tops at connection points. Setting the joists perfectly level at the house is easy and the beam makes them fairly even near the front edge but the problem is in the middle. A single sliver of 1 1 2 inch wide shim will naturally crush under the weight of nearly any beam in a wood floor system. Look for insect damage and moisture.

Leveling the floor with shims is when you attach thin wedge shaped pieces of wood on top of the low areas of the joists to make the top joists even. The closer you get to where the joists connect to ledger or beam the more the resistance of the joist relative to the pull. The engineer s detail shows plywood or wood shims with no further info offered. Even though we use 1 pt lumber the joists are often slightly warped or vary in depth at times causing adjacent joists to differ in height by as much as 1 2 inch or more.

If you ve had a chronically damp basement or crawlspace look for indications of insect damage to structural members. The only problem with using wood shims arises when the shims are too small to support the weight load of the main beams. If the shims are cut from the edges of nominal 2x4s they are only 1 1 2 inches wide. Screw the wood shims into place on top of the joists with a drill and screws to bring the low spots up to the same height as the high spots for an even installation area for the subfloor material.

Then shim any daylight between beam and joist. Then do the decking. Powderpost beetles leave joists and beams riddled with small holes. Also look for floor joists that have been cut improperly to install pipes wiring or hvac ducts.

Disconnect the hurricane clip either from the joist or the beam. For a couple of reasons i m going to leave the posts sitting on their concrete piers and shim the space between the top of each post and the girder that sits on it.