Old Slab New Mudsills

[CurlyDave]

I have finally demolished my burned-out house and am starting to move along on rebuilding.

One of the questions which a contractor brought up is the question of how an I going to handle the fact that I now have a 20 year old foundation with old, plain steel foundation bolts (a little rusty, but certainly re-usable) and will be using new pressure treated mudsills. The new pressure treated wood requires either galvanized or stainless fasteners.

Any suggestions?

Can I wrap electrical tape around the bolts, or coat them with epoxy?

 

[powerpace]

You might try cutting lengths of galvanized pipe with the inside diameter of the bolt to the thickness of the mud sill. The mud sill hole would be cut oversize to fit the diameter of your pipe shim.

 

[Carykong]

my local building code would insist on galvanized bolts with pressure treated wood. you can retro fit galvanized anchors into an existing foundation with relative ease. good luck

 

[Carykong]

forgot to add that you can retro fit with galvanized lag bolts/anchors. 1/2 hammer drill will make your holes very quickly

 

[woodlandfarms]

A house on our property burned down and we discussed rebuilding it with the state inspector. They said no, that once a foundation has had a fire it must be destroyed do to melting of the steel and such. So we had to push it in and put the house somewhere (but thankfully better) on the property. Maybe it is a washington thing......

 

[CurlyDave]

Maybe it is a washington thing......

Could be a Washington thing, could be the condition of the foundation.

I had professional engineer look at mine and he stated in writing that it "...appears to be undamaged by the fire."

 

[EddieWalker]

I'd cut them all off and install new anchor bolts. It just takes a second to drill the holes with a SDS Rotary hammer. Size and depth of the hole are not an issue.

I set my walls and drill the hole through the wood with my drill, then put my SDS into the hole and drill out the concrete. It takes longer to type it then it does to do it.

Eddie

 

[whitedogone]

I have finally demolished my burned-out house and am starting to move along on rebuilding.

One of the questions which a contractor brought up is the question of how an I going to handle the fact that I now have a 20 year old foundation with old, plain steel foundation bolts (a little rusty, but certainly re-usable) and will be using new pressure treated mudsills. The new pressure treated wood requires either galvanized or stainless fasteners.

Any suggestions?

Can I wrap electrical tape around the bolts, or coat them with epoxy?

The IRC allows plain steel bolts if they are 1/2" or larger.

 

[RadarTech]

Curly,
how did the insurance all work out?

J

 

[CurlyDave]

how did the insurance all work out?

I quit posting on it because this is an open forum and no one know who is reading, but it is almost all over now and I can say what I want.

The Public Adjustor and I finally beat them into submission.

Right up until the very end, they were claiming that the house had salvageable parts, but then the Town told them what they had to do to salvage anything (test it through an engineer pre-approved by the Town, not one of their in-house lap dogs) and they decided that it would be less costly to pay off the policy limits.

So they have paid off the policy limit, and because I had negotiated a few things with them of what they would pay if we reached the policy limit they actually paid about $3000 over the limit.

And, best of all the Public Adjustor noticed that there was some mold on the parts they wanted to salvage, so I got $5000 for mold abatement.

Because we are selling the house after we rebuild it, and because it was really a tossup whether to salvage anything or just start from scratch, we decided to demolish the house down to the foundation. We felt that having to disclose the use of fire-salvaged material would be a negative marketing point for the house. We abated the mold right to the dump...

However, the saga continues...

Instead of sending the money to me, the insurance company sent it in checks made out to me and to the bank holding the mortgage. Of course, they have their own set of silly rules about how they will release the money to me. This is going to be another long uphill battle.

I think I will start a new thread on the rebuild in a few days -- there are even tractors, or at least a skid steer, in it.