Replacing mudsills

[jimbob]

I have a 75 year old house that is in decent shape. The PO did some very clever landscaping where he raised the front yard right up to the second clapboard on the house. I'm pretty sure it's the highest point in the nieghborhood. The only reason I figured he did this was to rot the musdills. He also did some clever roof flashing so that all water that ran off the roof ran right onto the earth built up over the musdills. That's why I'm sure he did all this deliberately to rot the mudsills.

Anyway, I need to replace the rotted sections of sills. I am pretty sure I understand how to replace them. Support the floor over the sills to take the weight off them , knock out the old sill replace it with new wood. I have read that you need to splice in new sections rather than butt them up against each other and I wasn't sure how to do this. Any info on this. Anything else I should consider?

Thanks for the help.

BTW, I am also fixing all the clever landscaping and drainage.

[RicodJour]

The following link will give you the general idea. It's a little different without floor joists, but the idea is the same.

You want to make sure that the sill acts as a single unit and not a bunch of patched in pieces. You can use half-lap joints to tie the pieces together, use additional retrofit anchor bolts, a structural epoxy adhesive or a combination of the techniques.

R

[jimbob]

Thanks for your reply. The link was very helpful. I'm not sure what you mean by a half lap joint.

[GWB]

Gee, I never been to a "half" lap joint.

[RicodJour]

Stick around. Those places usually have a two for one. ;)

R

[RicodJour]

You're welcome. This is a half lap joint:

R

[jimbob]

Thanks, that makes sense. Would I lap the board on the horizontal or vertical face of the board. Of course it would ne much easier lapping it horizontally (along the 6 inch face of the 2x6).

Thanks.

[RicodJour]

On the flat face. I'd have the joint fall in between floor joists - a little easier to work that way. You can use the 1 1/2" joist hanger nails to nail it together, but use some construction adhesive as well.

R