I am trying to install wood flooring, after taking out the carpet an noticed that the floor is very uneven and someplaces dip to a half an inch to an inch. How can I fix this without leveling compound….
HELP
Discussion Forum
Discussion Forum
Up Next
Video Shorts
Featured Story
Learn the specific guidelines for location, spacing, and clearance for optimal safety.
Featured Video
Highlights
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Fine Homebuilding Magazine
Fine Home Building
Follow
-
Fine Homebuilding
Dig into cutting-edge approaches and decades of proven solutions with total access to our experts and tradespeople.
Start Free Trial Now -
GBA Prime
Get instant access to the latest developments in green building, research, and reports from the field.
Start Free Trial Now
Replies
shims of some sort
Assuming that you don't need to deal with the framing (broken, misplaced or "other"-joists.............
shim it.
Use wide wood shingles, 1/4" ply, asphalt shingles, tar paper, whatever you got to bring it close to "FLAT".
You level shows the floor is not level-and trying to make it such might be too much for the job or the installer. Find flat.
Why no SLC?
You leave out several critical pieces of information:
-- What's the floor construction?
-- What will be the new floor covering?
-- Why not use leveling compound?
You should use leveling compound, that's very important!
How to level floor...
Ditto on shooting for flat rather than level.
First, what caused the dips?
I ran into a wavy floor on a major renovation / addition project. The framing was done with pressure treated lumber. The girders and floor joists had shrunk differentially. The floor sheathing was diagonal pressure treated 1" pressure treated lumber. The existing floor was sound, just not flat.
Before we installed 8" heart pine flooring in this large room, we had to level the floor. The best method that I could come up with was the following.
We glued and screwed layers of 1/4" everywhere there were dips in the floor and then removed the screws.
Anywhere the dip was over 1/4" we glued down a second layer.
Anywhere the dip was over 1/2" we glued down a third layer.
Then we rented a commercial floor sander and sanded the edges of the plywood down to 0 and levelled the floor that way.
This was a lot of work, but provided a very good nailing base for the pine floor, which we would not have had with any kind of levelling compound.
I consider this a "best practice" solution.
Be sure to think through the transitions at all the doors!
uneven floor
In your advise you said the following:
We glued and screwed layers of 1/4" everywhere there were dips in the floor and then removed the screws.
Anywhere the dip was over 1/4" we glued down a second layer.
Anywhere the dip was over 1/2" we glued down a third layer.
What did you use in the layers?
I have on my floor is 10x10 joist that are bowed at places and the floor is OSB. There are places where settling occured and the OSB close to the load bearing wall is where most of the settling is.
I now that leveling compound becomes brittle when you nail into what else can I use?
What is the flooring you want to install? Assuming it is e.g. wood flooring, it shouldn't matter. Even if the leveling compound cracks a bit and such, it's not going anywhere ... it is still doing it's job of providing a flat base under the flooring.
Nailing through leveling compound doesn't 'create' a more brittle material (i.e. it doesn't change the composition or properties of the material just because you are nailing through it).
Not sure what you intended to show w/ the pic. It doesn't seem to illustrate much other than the other floor is maybe not level.
I agree w/ others ... flat is important ... level not so much so (generally speaking, of course).
why not leveling compound?
subfloor that extreme is a framing problem
Uha, duh..
Ya lower the high spots and raise the low spots to make it flat.
Then put a level on it, and raise the low side and lower the high side to make it level.
Whut cud be simpler?
Jacking spots can be tricky based on which way the low spot runs in relation to the direction of the joist. It can be successful if the low spot runs in the same direction as the joist. Wnen the low spot runs perpendicular to the joists, jacking the joists can raise the whole low spot area - including the surrounding high spots. Sometimes after trial and effort the best solution is a self leveling patch compound.