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A tricky plank floor in an old house in Denver took me three days
I got a job to put down a new plank floor in a house built in the 1920s. The subfloor was a real mess, with big dips and high spots all over the place. I thought I could level it out in a day, but it took me three full days just to get it flat enough to start. I used a 4-foot level and a lot of floor patch, going back over spots I thought were done. Has anyone else run into a floor that was this far out of whack? What's your go-to method for saving time on a bad subfloor?
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hannahj4919d ago
A 4-foot level is actually a bit short for finding those big dips. You really want an 8-foot straightedge for that kind of work, it shows the full picture. Floor patch is fine for small stuff, but for major low spots I pour self-leveling compound. It flows out and finds its own level, which saves a huge amount of time going back and forth. Getting the floor flat is the most important step, so three days isn't crazy for a bad one.
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davidshah19d ago
My old house in Philly had a subfloor that was off by over an inch in one corner. I ended up sistering new joists to the old ones to bring everything up to plane.
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That's the real way to fix it. Sistering joists like davidshah did gets to the actual problem, not just covering it up. Self-leveler over a huge dip is just putting a bandage on a broken leg. It might look okay for a while, but the structure is still wrong. You have to support the floor from underneath first, then worry about making it flat on top. Anything else is a waste of time and money.
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