I'm in the process of restoring an old century home, approximately 150 years old, and there is significant rot on the joists / support beams. An example on one face of the house is shown in the attached images.

I'm NOT going to jack the house and replace the beams BUT I would like to preserve the beams AND provide / restore some strength to give me more "life". The house has been standing for a long time so I don't believe it will collapse for many more years. The house has NO basement but it does have a low crawl space.

Some sections of the beams appear to be intact and some sections I removed by hand "wood dust" as a result of the rot!

The beams are approximately 8 inch by 8 inch with possibly up to 50%, of the cross section in some areas, gone.

IF I could restore some of the cross sections of the beams with petrifier / filler/ re-bar/ etc./ I would then go through the effort of "sandwiching" the beams with 2x8 lumber planks. The face of the support beams are accessible in the crawl space.

Questions:

(1) What is the best product, or combination of products to use, to rebuild these beams?

(2) Any recommendations of materials to use to help in the reinforcement?

NOTE: In the end, I just want to provide some restoration and I don't expect to implement a true civil engineering solution which would not be worth it.

Hi,

We can offer some advice on products to use however we only sell the product we are not engineers.

I would recommend the LiquidWood and WoodEpox from Abatron. The videos on our website that can be very helpful.

Please don't hesitate should you require further information.

Kind Regards,

[Deleted by a moderator]

[Deleted by the author]

Wow! 150 years! It's crazy! I honestly don't know how to help you, I'm just surprised that you decided to do this and wanted to ask why you are engaged in the restoration of such an old house? Is it more profitable than demolishing it and buying a new one? It's just that I also have a fairly old house and I do not know which is better, buy a new one or do it. I'm already looking at furniture, I want to order an Ajax security system there so that everything is at a good level, but I haven't made a decision about the house yet.. What do you advise me?

I'm going ahead to replace and rebuild some of the rotten sections of the support beams because I believe it is cheaper than to rebuild a whole house from scratch...considering the cost of materials these days. This stuff is new for me so it is taking longer than expected.