Q. This week: My house is about 70 years old and the floors on the first story shake when someone walks on them. The problem, I think, is that the floor joists are too narrow. They're only 7.5 inches ...

Editor’s note: Welcome to the Brownstone Boys Reno, a reader renovation diary about renovating a brownstone in Bed Stuy. See the first one here. They also blog at www.thebrownstoneboys.com. In many ...

INDIANAPOLIS — If your deck feels a little bouncy underfoot, it might not be the top boards at all — it could be the joists underneath that are starting to rot. I ran into that exact problem on my ...

The floor in your home resists racking back and forth because the sheets of 3/4-inch sub flooring interlock and are all nailed to the floor joists. If you use composite decking like I have on my deck, ...

Building codes governing framed floors include an allowance for sagging, which sounds bad. But the allowable limit is 1/360 of the span, which isn’t much. Spread over a 45-foot-long joist — if you ...

Q: Our 35-year-old house has a 7-foot cantilevered deck on the top floor -- about 25 feet above ground level. The untreated fir joists feel solid but have large black areas on the sides -- especially ...