Hi all new to this forum. Need advice on leveling floors in an old house build beginning last century.
Customers gutted the whole house, rebuild walls on the first floor now he wants me to level the floors that have a dip in the middle of about 1.25″ thru the whole length of the house.
Decided to install a 3.5″ X 9.25″ inch beam underneath the whole floor support every 12 feet by a post. The joists are 2×6 sistered by 2×4 , 24 inches on center. I could raise the beam gradually until the joist are leveled but I have a wall that is in my way. The wall was constructed on top of the floor between two joists. Underneath that floor their is a block wall. Should I transfer the weight of the above wall to the wall below. If yes how. Then cut the floor alongside the wall then raise my beam to make my floor level and then glue and screw 1/2″ plywood on top of that.
Any comments would be greatly appreciated
Replies
Is this a bearing wall? How long is it? For a short enough non-bearing wall, you might get away with pulling the baseboards and shortening the studs, and the rest of the wall will just hang there until you lift the floor and sole plate to meet it. Or you could put wedges under some of the shortened studs, and slowly back them out as you jack up the floor.
In the worst case, it might be easier demo the wall, fix the floor, and rebuild the wall. You'd have to compare that route with cutting up the sub floor and supporting the wall from below.
-- J.S.
You don't mention the span, but 2 x 6s, sistered with 2 x 4s don't sound like a great start to me. But thats just my antenae going up!
Jake Gulick
[email protected]
CarriageHouse Design
Black Rock, CT
the span is 16 feet
If we can't jack the floor then we use varying thicknesses of ply to get close to level as possible. At the very least make it less noticable. I remember putting in an incert window at the top of a stairwell once and when bringing up the trim noticed the window looked terribly out of level. Turnd out it was the stairs. Had to put the window out of plumb and level to make it look right. ( yes it was square ) We have had floors drop 1 1/2" over 2 1/2' form the outside wall. Great fun for kitchen the cabinet install. The only problem with the shim and ply subfloor method is the transition strips at the existing floors that remain.