Shifted/Dropped Flooring

[Aikouka]

I'll start off by saying that I'm not necessarily expecting a solution for this problem, but maybe some insight as to what I'm looking at, and what things I should look into. Also, if anyone has an idea, what sort of cost I might be looking at to make repairs.

The problem started when I noticed some trim around the garage door opening coming off a bit. I didn't think a lot of it as reattaching it didn't seem like a terribly high priority. (It was just cosmetic anyway.) My garage sits below a portion of the house, and one day, I noticed a dip in the floor in a room that's above the garage. It dawned on me that the distance between this dip and the wall seemed to be about the same as the distance between the garage wall and the garage door opening. I took a look at garage door opening, and I noticed that a long header board seemed pushed out on the side that had the trim coming off where as the other side was fine.

One thing that came to mind was what the repairman did for my garage door awhile back. Essentially, the steel cables on the side came loose, and the repairman reattached everything and replaced the spring. However, he also told me that he added another screw to the garage door opener's bracket where it attaches to the wall above the garage door. That block of wood that he screwed into directly presses against the wood header that is shifting. I'm looking more at that repair because of what happened when I took a mallet and hammered everything back into place... my garage door opener -- a fairly newer Chamberlain unit -- started complaining about over-torque situations and stopping until the trim and header popped back out. When a friend of mine checked out the situation, he mentioned that it looked like the nails that were supposed to keep that header board in check didn't look adequately driven on the shifting side as compared to the other side.

I've been tempted to rework the mounting of the garage door opener's rail to better disperse the pressure caused from pulling the door up. Perhaps using a large metal plate (instead of a small block of wood) that attaches to more points might serve as being a bit more helpful and potentially take the load off of that one header. Also, perhaps attempt to properly secure the header.

Ultimately, the thing that has me worried more is the dip in the floor. As noted above, it could be related to the header being dislodged, but I don't know if it could also relate to a support that exists in the middle of the garage. I haven't seen anything off about the support; however, I figure that if anything should be keeping the height properly set, it would be the support. I don't know exactly how the support attaches given that it's obfuscated by the drywall on the ceiling, but would that also a potential area to look into?

Also, I can provide photos later if anyone wants to see anything mentioned.

 

[Greenman]

A picture (or ten) is worth a thousand words. I have a little knowledge in this field, but I can't picture what you're trying to explain.

 

[Aikouka]

A picture (or ten) is worth a thousand words. I have a little knowledge in this field, but I can't picture what you're trying to explain.

Apologies for the delay. Yeah... I tried to think of a good way to explain things, but it's a lot to describe with all that hand-waving. I've taken a few photos of what I can easily photograph. For example, I can show the board being dislodged, but I can't really show the dip. You can easily feel it if you step on the floor, but it's only like half an inch, which is easily hidden visually by the carpet. I've attached them in files, which I'll discuss below...

• Garage Trim and Header: This is an outside shot showing some of the trim that I mentioned being pushed out from around the garage door opening. It wasn't until later when I noticed what appeared to be the header board being pushed out as well -- mostly due to the lack of paint on that portion. As noted, I have hammered this back in before, but it eventually got pushed out again. My assumption is that this was due to the garage door opener, because after I hammered it back into place, the garage door opener started stalling due to over-torque conditions.
• Garage Door Opener Rail Mount: This is where the rail for the garage door opener is mounted against the outside wall. Originally, the mount was only held on with the single top bolt, but when my garage door was repaired, the guy added the bottom two bolts. It wasn't until after this that I had issues with the board getting pushed out. This is why I'm wondering if the pressure from the garage door opener pulling up the door is what is pushing out that board.
• Board Dislodged: This is the left side of the garage door opening. The board that is pushed out on the outside is the one that is in between the larger board and the metal header. A friend of mine noted that it appeared that this side of the board was not nailed in well, which was likely causing it to not be secured.
• Board Not Dislodged: This is the right side of the garage door opening. Here you can see what that board should look like.

One thing that may be worth noting is that the dislodged side is toward in the inside of the house where the good side is on the outside edge of the house. I've included a very rudimentary floor plan layout for that portion of the house and where the dropped board is. As for the central garage support, it's probably an 8-10" cylindrical support. I could get some photos of that, but we wouldn't see much unless I cut into the ceiling to show where it's mounted.

 

[Greenman]

The header over the garage door appears to be a steel beam, is that correct? If so, it looks to me that the fasteners holding the wood framing to the beam have failed or were never installed.
Edit: In that first picture it looks looks the sofit has moved forward rather than the header moving back. Is there a floor system above the garage or a roof?

The dip in the floor is almost certainly unrelated. That could be as simple as a joist that's bowed, or even a sloppy carpenter.

 

[Aikouka]

The header over the garage door appears to be a steel beam, is that correct? If so, it looks to me that the fasteners holding the wood framing to the beam have failed or were never installed.

Yes, it uses a steel plate that's run through the brick siding to form the top of the garage door's opening. It looks like they attempted to secure the wood framing to the board beneath it, but failed. I was thinking about this yesterday... what if I took something like a Kreg jig to create some diagonal holes to go from the board below the dislodged one into the dislodged one (after hitting it back into place, of course)?

Edit: In that first picture it looks looks the sofit has moved forward rather than the header moving back. Is there a floor system above the garage or a roof?

Yes, the board moved forward. From what I can tell, the "dislodged board" is the same thing as the painted board seen in the outside shot.

There's a second floor above the garage. Given the placement of the dips in the floor seemingly aligning with the position of the door, that's why I was curious if there was some relation.

The dip in the floor is almost certainly unrelated. That could be as simple as a joist that's bowed, or even a sloppy carpenter.

That would be pretty common with the rest of the stuff that I've seen with this house. The garage may look a bit odd at first, because about half of it (the front half) has a lower ceiling than the rest. That's meant to support HVAC and plumbing runs, but while it makes it harder to look into the joists for the flooring above, it could also have not been done well.