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Update: A job in a 100 year old house in Portland made me rethink my underpad choice
I was working on a full install in this old Portland bungalow last month, and the floor was a mess. It had these huge dips and soft spots from years of settling. I was about to lay down my usual 8 pound rebond pad, but the homeowner, an older guy who had lived there forever, stopped me. He pulled up a corner of the old carpet and showed me the original horsehair pad from like the 1920s. It was thin but still had some spring. He said, 'This stuff lasted longer than the carpet on top of it.' That got me thinking. For the really uneven parts, I ended up using a combo of a 6 pound pad and some leveling compound in the worst dips instead of just a thicker pad everywhere. The final feel was way more solid and even. Has anyone else run into a situation where an old house made you switch up your standard underlayment plan?
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fisher.jessica26d ago
Ever have one of those jobs that just sticks with you? That old horsehair pad story is wild, it's crazy what held up back then. I get why you had to mix methods, sometimes the standard fix just doesn't cut it on those floors. It sounds like you found a really smart solution for that place.
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