Should I Reinforce These Floor Joists?

Link to google album: https://goo.gl/photos/Vdmp6u9c46GLwbTJ9

These pictures detail my fixer-upper house. 2 family house with identical floor plans stacked on top of one another. I am renovating the bathrooms and removed the drop ceiling in first floor bathroom to reveal floor joists for second floor bathroom. One pic details the second floor demolished bathroom and the rest of the pics detail under the bathroom focusing on the joists.

As you can see, a plumber in the past removed alot of joist (almost too much) it seems to run some pipes to the tub. In addition, the bathroom has seen some water damage (120 year old house) so the joists are cracking etc...

The combination of excessive removal with water damaged cracked joists is concerning me. Those floor joists support a heavy cast iron tub and toilet. I feel the load on these joists is certain to increase once the tub is filled with water and a tenant begins to use it regularly.

The ceiling is open, entire building is vacant so if there ever was a time to do somethign abot this, it is now. One of my construction buddies told me it would not hurt to sister these joists with some fresh dimensional lumber. What would you guys do? Opinions appreciated...

Your friend and your conscience are both telling you the same thing. Go ahead and add some fresh lumber to stiffen things up. I imagine if you try to pound a nail in those old joists you may be surprised at how solid they are despite the water damage, but some fresh lumber certainly won't hurt.

I had a similar situation in my house, a plumber decided to remove an entire section of a joist when they installed the downstairs toilet. I was able to get some rough cut lumber of the same dimensions and run it alongside the original joist.

Just have the mother-in-law move down there..

As an Homage to the many Fannies that have passed through those two bathrooms since the Indoor Plumbing was installed,I'd Sister Up on the Structural ! Your timing,access and at-will work opportunity will never be better ! I like Rob's Friend and Conscience comment,too ! If it was me,I'd use galvanized carriage bolts to really cinch it all together. Maybe having acces to a right angle drill wouldn't hurt for creating the through bolt holes in the tighter spots. Being the Master of Construction Over-Kill,I thought that I'd daze You with my Knuckle-Dragger Construction Thoughts on this Fine Thanksgiving A.M. !!

Yes, you should. Water weighs 8.34#/gallon.
The problem I see it that it looks like the piping runs are installed willy nilly. If you can remove the piping and than reinforce the floor joists, you will come up with a better job.
Install the new piping runs without cutting the new joists out. In unfinished spaces I install the domestic water piping on the face of the joist and do not drill holes. If the basement will be finished in the future, I run the mains along the wall where it all can be boxed in and hidden.
Dan.

Lu47Dan wrote:Yes, you should. Water weighs 8.34#/gallon.
The problem I see it that it looks like the piping runs are installed willy nilly. If you can remove the piping and than reinforce the floor joists, you will come up with a better job.
Install the new piping runs without cutting the new joists out. In unfinished spaces I install the domestic water piping on the face of the joist and do not drill holes. If the basement will be finished in the future, I run the mains along the wall where it all can be boxed in and hidden.
Dan.

I have a plumber redoing all of that plumbing. The main cast iron sewer stack is going to be replaced with PVC (it is cracked) and the water supplies to sink, toilet and tub will be run into the walls rather than going across joists as is now. After the plumbing is out of the way, I will reinforce those joists.

Hi NJJoe, a joist that is notched becomes the less dimensional lumber, example: a 2 x 8 notched 2 inches becomes a 2 x 6 and what makes it worse is you may see lineal splitting of the timber at the base of the notch...a main reason for old houses settling in a bad way is because of all the notching done to accommodate indoor plumbing installed long after the home was built, electrical not so much but did contribute some.

It looks like in your case sistering joists would help and if possible running new 2 by's perpendicular against 2 opposing walls and hiding behind soffits and run the suspended ceiling between the soffits...you could run 'em 16" on center all the way accross and sheet rock the ceiling.

NJJoe wrote:I have a plumber redoing all of that plumbing. The main cast iron sewer stack is going to be replaced with PVC (it is cracked) and the water supplies to sink, toilet and tub will be run into the walls rather than going across joists as is now. After the plumbing is out of the way, I will reinforce those joists.

With plumbing out of the way I would re-frame the bathroom ceiling while consulting the plumber for ease of the new plumbing...biggest expense is the plumber not the lumber