This kills the structure.
this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2025
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Wait…wait. Did he cut through the floor joists in order to inset the pipe?
Yes. Yes he did
Why…why would he not just use u-brackets to attach the pipe to the joists??!
Steve don't know anything but he did it for love.
That divorce is going to be glorious.
Not only did he miss the easiest way to solve this problem, but he cut perfectly square notches that were twice as wide as the pipe. You need multiple tools to do that, and a LOT of quality time on your back in a crawlspace eating sawdust to do it.
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For the vibes. Now he can show his guests how clean his crawlspace is.
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This kills the tenant!
My dipshit contractor did something similar.
Me, before demo on a big remodel: "Hey, if you could get rid of these soffits, (on the first floor, with a lot of weight above them) that would be cool."
Them: " Yeah, after we get it open we'll take a look and let you know."
I swing by a couple days later and this is how they rerouted things that were in the soffits, without saying anything to me.
So anyway, I'm in litigation now.
Physics will ultimately win.
It's entirely possible to do what they wanted, but there's really no point in a crawlspace like that.
You just have to cut no more than 1/3 the size of the joist, and stay at least 2" from the edge.
This would require a lot of planning and redoing all the plumbing, but it's possible.
Most plumbers would probably say "sure, I'll do that but it'll cost you" cause this job would be a super pain in the ass.
The text might be bait, but this seems like an awful lot of trouble for a joke. Someone probably did do this and someone took a picture to show it off.
Hypothetically speaking, if he just cut a whole big enough for the pipe to go through how much better would it have been?
Much better. Imagine you’re bending something. The maximum tension is going to be at the very bottom and the max compression is going to be at the very top (this is why steel I-beams are shaped the way the are - to put the most material in the areas doing the most work). If you can put the hole in the middle you’re not impacting the structural integrity of the joist too much. You’d still have to worry about shear forces so you’d not want the hole to be too close to either end. Look up “castellated beam” if you want to see some steel examples.
Why not just use hangers? No way a metal bracket doesnt exist for hanging pipe from joists. DIY some metal wire and a screw to hold it if you have to, hang that sucker like fresh venison, but why cut existing structures?
100% a better way of doing it. I was just trying to answer the question of notching versus drilling a hole.
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A joist hole can be no more than 1/3rd the total depth of the joist, I think that pipe is larger than that. Even if you placed it in the very middle you’d still be compromising the structural integrity.
Best to just get some hangers and a fix it to the bottom; you’re still well clear of the ground. Put in some shims near one end if it’s a drain and you have to maintain pitch; I think this is a thick electrical conduit though?
EDIT: nope that looks like 4” PVC drain pipe
Assuming it's centered vertically and not too close to the ends, then the joists would still have essentially full strength. Because the top and bottom are seeing compression and tension, there's an area in the middle that's not so critical.
No, no they wouldn't. In the UK there are very strict rules about notching or putting holes in wooden joists. Precisely because it weakens them.
Full joist the load is spread through all the fibres of the timber. Drill a big hole in the middle and the load only goes through the top and the bottom fibres. So essentially it's as strong as those two blocks of fibers. So why not make the joist just that thin the the first place then? The answer is because it's nowhere near as strong.
There are various steel, composite and wooden joists with a special frame construction that can have hollow sections. A standard piece of timber with a big hole drilled in the middle of it is not one of them
I was trying to keep it simple for the sake of answering the question, but I'm literally a carpenter and drilling solid wood joists is totally fine (at least in Canada) as long as you roughly follow what I said. Maybe I could've said "design strength" instead of full strength but again, trying to keep it short and simple.
I've worked mostly commercial though so you've inspired me to look back in my books to make sure I wasn't way off base in my recollection.
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America, where houses are built out of wood and there's no such thing as insulation.
Wait what? Wooden houses are great! With insulation, of course
I remember being a kid and watching a few films where people fall over and put holes in the walls; I was so confused. I didn’t understand how people could put holes in bricks using their arms and legs.
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Instead of building out of wood they should come up with a material made from carbon extracted from the air through an organic process.
Wouldn't the world be better off if we used building materials that were carbon negative?
There's parts of the country where it doesn't regularly get cold enough for insulation to really matter.
That said, my house in the Chicago suburbs is over 140 years old and was definitely never insulated underneath. By the feel of the walls in the winter any insulation that was in there has probably all collapsed as well.
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Wooden beams for the floors is even common in houses made of bricks though. I live in the Netherlands and brick houses that have been standing for hundreds of years have wooden floors and the foundation is even standing on wooden piles. Wood isn’t as shit of a building material as you think it is. There are even modern apartments in freezing Northern Europe that are made with cross laminated timber. https://www.dezeen.com/2015/09/23/puukuokka-oopeaa-tallest-wooden-apartment-block-finland-wins-finlandia-prize-for-architecture-2015/
The problem in American buildings isn’t that they are made of wood it’s that they do it cheaply. Stick framing is the most common way to build a house in the US. You can build a very solid house out of wood if you opt for timber framing. Like in Japan there are wooden temples that have been standing for more than a thousand years.
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I'd say he cut through the bearers, which is somewhat worse.
What particular brand of OCD do you need to have to care so deeply about the pipes under your house being clean that you would do this?
I wonder how they repaired that, and who paid.
My dad used to have a little old house where the previous owner cut a notch like this through the main beam to run a PVC pipe for the toilet. We bridged the gap with a strip of steel plate and then braced it with a foundation jack. That wouldn't work with so many beams cut though.
Hahaha I love it. Wood? That can't possibly be important. No way.
👷♂️🍿
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