Joists are essential in the construction of residential houses, they are long pieces of wood uniformly attached to the underside of floors, giving the floors support.
If you go into an unfinished basement and look up at the ceiling you will most likely see the joists under the floor boards of the above floor.
When home inspectors and wood inspectors do their inspections they will look at joists to ensure there are no problems with the wood joists.
They look for evidence of wood eating insects, water damage or major cracks in the wood boards.
These three things are the main culprits that can compromise the strength of a joist or a group of joists.
Wood insects, usually termites can find their way into lower levels of houses and start to eat away at joists.
Water from a leak from an upstairs water source, might go undetected for a while, and begin to rot the wood on the lower level.
And cracks, well that can be age, or something structural.
Since I work with residential houses I have mostly seen wooden joists.
Sometimes when floors are creaky in older houses, it is possible to hammer a Finishing Nail into the floor at that noisy spot, in the hopes that the nail will secure the floor board back into the joist below. But this is not always a given.
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More in this series:
Things About Houses - Basements
Things About Houses - Chimneys
Things About Houses - Electricity
Things About Houses - Gingerbread
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