03/11/2026
🚨 Please don’t cut your floor joists like this…
These photos are from two recent inspections—one in Detroit and one in West Bloomfield.
Floor joists are what support the weight of your floors, furniture, and everything inside your home. Unfortunately, sometimes people cut large sections out of them to run plumbing or wiring.
That’s exactly what happened here.
In one home, several joists had large notches cut through them to run utilities. In another, someone cut a big chunk out of a joist just to fit a bathtub drain.
The problem is that removing too much wood weakens the structure of the floor and can lead to:
⚠️ Sagging floors
⚠️ Bouncy or uneven walking surfaces
⚠️ Cracked drywall
⚠️ Structural repairs later on
There are proper ways to route plumbing and wiring through framing, but they need to follow strict limits on how much can be drilled or notched.
This is exactly why a professional home inspection matters—many of these issues are completely hidden unless you know where to look.
If you're buying a home in Metro Detroit, I’d be happy to help make sure everything underneath the surface is safe and structurally sound.
📞 Michigan Inspections – MI Guy