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Hi all,
We were hoping to get some advice about a sloping floor. We're planning to re-do the floor in our bedroom on the first floor of our terraced house. We will remove the carpet and we want to lay a wooden floor, on top of the existing wooden planks which are screwed into the joist below and which we don't want to replace as they are in good shape.
The problem is this: the floor is sloping. From one end of the bedroom to the other there's 6 cm difference in height, over ca. 4 meters in length. This is also apparent on the landing and in the other bedroom.
The underlying cause is not that the existing wooden floor or the joist below are bad or rotting. They all seem in good shape. It's more likely caused by the whole house being slightly 'sloping'. We measured the windows and walls on the first floor, and they are at a slight angle, though less so than the floor. In the past there's probably been some subsidence, but our surveyor said this was of no concern for the future.
Our house is standard construction, with wooden joist supporting the floor, and it's from the 1920s or 30s.
Our idea to fix this issue is to leave the joist and existing wooden planks in place, and to use shims and sheets of plywood to raise the low spots and create a new level surface. We would screw and glue these shims and plywood to the joist below (through the existing wooden planks), and then lay our new floor on top of this.
This is more or less what we plan to do:
Question: is this a stupid idea?
One disadvantage is that once the floor is level, the walls and windows will still be at a slight angle. I wonder if this will look weird, especially when we sell the house in the future.
We would really like to avoid having to remove all existing wooden planks and increase the height of the underlying joist, and then putting the planks back. Any thoughts?
Cheers,
Vincent
We were hoping to get some advice about a sloping floor. We're planning to re-do the floor in our bedroom on the first floor of our terraced house. We will remove the carpet and we want to lay a wooden floor, on top of the existing wooden planks which are screwed into the joist below and which we don't want to replace as they are in good shape.
The problem is this: the floor is sloping. From one end of the bedroom to the other there's 6 cm difference in height, over ca. 4 meters in length. This is also apparent on the landing and in the other bedroom.
The underlying cause is not that the existing wooden floor or the joist below are bad or rotting. They all seem in good shape. It's more likely caused by the whole house being slightly 'sloping'. We measured the windows and walls on the first floor, and they are at a slight angle, though less so than the floor. In the past there's probably been some subsidence, but our surveyor said this was of no concern for the future.
Our house is standard construction, with wooden joist supporting the floor, and it's from the 1920s or 30s.
Our idea to fix this issue is to leave the joist and existing wooden planks in place, and to use shims and sheets of plywood to raise the low spots and create a new level surface. We would screw and glue these shims and plywood to the joist below (through the existing wooden planks), and then lay our new floor on top of this.
This is more or less what we plan to do:
Question: is this a stupid idea?
One disadvantage is that once the floor is level, the walls and windows will still be at a slight angle. I wonder if this will look weird, especially when we sell the house in the future.
We would really like to avoid having to remove all existing wooden planks and increase the height of the underlying joist, and then putting the planks back. Any thoughts?
Cheers,
Vincent
