Notches and holes in floor joists

[mjr6550]

It looks like plumbers were destroying framing even before the Sawzall was invented.

It is also interesting that plumber (gas fitter?) chose to pipe for the gas lighting by notching the top of each floor joist right at mid-span. So I guess someone thought that if they are going to make holes in the joists that would also be a good spot.

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[plummen]

There have been butchers since the beginning of time.

[kurt]

A couple things....

I've never looked at an old joint that didn't have a multitude of these issues. It all settles into wherever it's going to spend it's life and it pretty much stays there. Notching a couple of old growth joists isn't something I'd do nowadays, but it doesn't ever seem to hurt anything all that much aside from some settlement that no one seems to care about and that's not ever going to cause any real issues.

Do this stuff in new engineered lumber, you can get houses falling down. Do it in an old house with old growth timber framing....and it's just another thing to deal with when you remodel it again someday.

I wouldn't call them butchers. They didn't know any better. Wood framing practice and technology was maybe a few years old when this place was built. No one had done this stuff before, i.e., built a wood house and filled it with pipes and wires.