DAY 6 - SH_T Happens - EVEN to me!!

Remember me telling you how "clever" we were to put plastic up on our living space ceiling to avoid dust and plaster pieces falling on to us and our stuff????  Well, I obvisouly didnt put up enough....

At approximately 2:45 pm I heard a crack, boom , bam and then came a HUGE puff of dust billowing out of my family room headed towards my kitchen.  The ENTIRE ceiling of the family room crashed on top of our living space.  And to top it off, I have one of the ONLY homes built in 1920 that has original insulation between the floors - not the nice and tidy batt or foam of today but the puffy million pieced yellow toxic stuff - that is now all over my living space!!!! 

Needless to say, there was some screaming, crying, shaking and then a BREAKDOWN.  Ruben and the guys jumped into action and as of 7 pm had it all cleaned up, had put plywood on the 2nd floor and put plastic back up so we could live in our space again.It was a SHOCK and a mess....

Thank goodness the TV survived!! I havent gotten a tally of the damage - will do that tomorrow but I did figure out the issues that led to this and have some tips on how to avoid it:

My existing floor joists of the 2nd floor ran from front to back - about 25+ feet long with no middle support.  We had serious cracks in our 1st floor FR ceiling due to the sagging of these joists.  Ruben needed to install beams for middle support for the new roof line and to be able to straighten out the floor upstairs so we can lay our bathroom tile without future cracking.  Normally you would insert the beams from below but because we were living below, he did it from above.  Basically he did it all right -  he came on the first floor, built some temporary support walls, cut the joists upstairs, installed the beams from above and reattached the joists to the beams with hangers like we do in new construction.  My floor was level and all was good.  He removed the temporary supports and then the ceiling cracked.  Cracking was expected...but 2 hours later the crack turned into a crash  and my ceiling landed on my stuff!! 

What can you do to avoid this?  If you live in an old house with plaster then have your framer install temporary walls on the main floor when beams are being installed and keep them in place until the project is almost over or until you can determine if the plaster will remain in tact or not. OR better yet, remove the plaster first.  Plaster is not bendable, flexible or forgiving.  Get rid of it and install sheet rock when it is all said and done!!

Lesson learned - there is nothing a good shop vac, 4 guys and a screaming female can't clean up!!  On to day 7 FAST....