Floor out of level

[Michael Kellough]

"LEVEL QUICK can be applied from a feathered-out,
disappearing edge to several inches thick."

Sounds like the stuff.

 

[b_m_hart]

Great advice all around, it seems.  Good to know there are multiple ways to skin this cat.  One question I have about anything that's self-leveling: doesn't it take a while to do enough layers, since you aren't supposed to do more than 1/4" per layer?

 

[Per Swenson]

No B,

This stuff is faster then you.

You must be prepared for all business.

Per

PS

They don't call it level QUICK for nothin ;D

 

[b_m_hart]

OK, so next question - assuming I have some 1/2" pressboard (MDF?) down - I get that it "self levels", but that raises the question of what stops it from running down into my basement through the wall?

 

[monte]

OK, so next question - assuming I have some 1/2" pressboard (MDF?) down - I get that it "self levels", but that raises the question of what stops it from running down into my basement through the wall?

Duct tape?  Your only using it until the self leveler cures. (it worked for the Apollo 9 spacecraft)

 

[Per Swenson]

Wha?

You think Roger's Kidding?

Non expanding window and door spray foam if its to big for tape,

Now if that floor is MDF, prime it. If its ply your good.

Per

 

[Per Swenson]

There is one other way.

But it sure helps if you have done it before.

Tar paper the floor. Nail down wire lathe.

Use a combination acrylic/mortar mix, semi dry and screed out a new floor.

It is far easier and quicker doing method #1.

P.

 

[Overtime]

Arm chair remodeling - fun ! especially when you don't have to do the work  ;D

Sounds like OSB (Oriented Strand Board) under the linoleum.
Room looks tiny - say 8' X ? 10 - 15'
First floor ? Whats under the floor ? A plaster ceiling ? or craw space, basement ?

Is the particle board damp, flaky. moldy, ?
If it's first floor and the room is as tiny as it looks I'm thinking rip it all out down to joists and sister, then some fresh 3/4" Plytanium sub floor and another 1/2" of ply on top of that (if needed) to finish level transition with other room then 1/4" hardibacker or wonderboard for tile.

If its a second floor or up and you have a ceiling below then I'm thinking the level goop over a decent surface. So as not to disturb the ceiling below, and whatever is in there like pipes, wiring and all those suprises that jump up and bite ya. All that demolition could shake loose an old plaster ceiling.

By now Per's crew is working on grouting and clean up 

 

[Roland Chung]

Per's first method will work well for you since you are probably more of a carpenter/woodworker type - no slight intended, just a good guess since we are meeting on the Festool Owner's Group.  I've used some Rapidset cement to patch a low spot in a bathroom and then put down Ditra before tiling over a slab.  The only thing that you might want to watch out for is deflection.  If you have any movement or sponginess in that general area, you might want to add an extra layer of 5/8" plywood before adding your cement board or Ditra.  Too much movement will cause you a lot of grief.  The Schluter website has a lot of helpful information if you decide to use Ditra.

Per's second method is what my old school tileman uses to make floors perfectly flat.  The tile man using the float method will make you look like you are working backwards.  Oh yeah, did I mention that deflection=bad.

Good luck!

 

[b_m_hart]

Arm chair remodeling - fun ! especially when you don't have to do the work  ;D

Sounds like OSB (Oriented Strand Board) under the linoleum.
Room looks tiny - say 8' X ? 10 - 15'
First floor ? Whats under the floor ? A plaster ceiling ? or craw space, basement ?

Is the particle board damp, flaky. moldy, ?
If it's first floor and the room is as tiny as it looks I'm thinking rip it all out down to joists and sister, then some fresh 3/4" Plytanium sub floor and another 1/2" of ply on top of that (if needed) to finish level transition with other room then 1/4" hardibacker or wonderboard for tile.

If its a second floor or up and you have a ceiling below then I'm thinking the level goop over a decent surface. So as not to disturb the ceiling below, and whatever is in there like pipes, wiring and all those suprises that jump up and bite ya. All that demolition could shake loose an old plaster ceiling.

By now Per's crew is working on grouting and clean up 

The room is roughly 9x11.5.  So yes, it's fairly small.  There's unfinished basement under the floor.  There are, however, the "surprise" things that you mentioned.  I know for a fact that there's plumbing and live electrical wiring at various places under the floor.

At this point, I'm leaning toward pulling up the particle board. Part of it is because the previous owners did a "remodel" just seven or eight years ago, and did a job so bad that I'm cursing them.  That's right, the guy that's never owned his own power tools before starting in on this.  Need a new outlets?  Hell, just cut up through the floor OUTSIDE of the wall, and then wire it into the wall through the molding.  New subfloor?  Ok, just lay it over the original, but put the base cabinets in first, then go around them.  Oh, and don't bother with cutting the old floor boards, just work around it.  

So, I'm left with a subfloor that's about an inch shy of the wall all around in this room.  I figure at this point it's probably just easier to tear the stupid thing out, create a bunch of big shims (as was suggested earlier in this thread), then put new plywood down.

I'm going to go get a laser leveler thinga-ma-jig so I can see the level plane, and making big shims outta 2x4s or whatever is needed.  Just find the level plane relative to where it needs to be so I can put a new sheet of plywood over it, mark the boards, cut em, and away we go.  The self leveling stuff sounds a LOT easier, but I'm concerned that it may muck up access to active system stuff such as plumbing and wiring.  I'll report back with results in a week or so.

 

[Per Swenson]

Overtime,

You are funny.

Crew? He quit and got a real job.

Never the less tile is installed and we will grout tomorrow morning.

So B, just leave a check on the kitchen counter and I will leave your keys there as well.

All ways a pleasure.

Per

Overtime,

Dude, if you were aware how much money there was in "Consultation"

You would be doing your overtime in a arm chair also. ;D

Per

 

[Tinker]

As I was reading thru all of the posts, i kept thinking about how i have done it.

Of course Per had to come up with the same solution in his second method.

With the wire lathe (be sure to use galvanized) nailed down, there will be no movement unless your house falls down first or you try driving a truck over it.

Some of the other materials mentioned are beyond my understanding as they are new since i retired from mason contracting about 27 years ago.

I don't like the "sistering" method here for reasons mentioned about cutting floorboards that may well be supporting partition walls.  You would then get into a whole new phase of your education.  You could put in some cats from underneath to support the partitions first.  since you have an unfinished basement underneath, I am sure you would have noticed if the uneaveness was/is caused by any decay situation.  If decay is any part of the problem, then we are all looking at the problem from the wrong end.  Since you have not mentioned, i go no further in that direction.

The photo does give the appearance that there may be some moisture involved.  Is there mildew?  again, not going there from what has been reported.
Tinker 

 

[b_m_hart]

Tinker - there's no rot below, and there wasn't any water damage (no white powder mildew or mold ugliness anywhere) that I've noticed when we pulled the paneling out of the lower part of the walls.  I think that it's the function of having lived through two major earthquakes (7.8 in 1906 and 7.1 in 1989).

 

[Michael Kellough]

[
The self leveling stuff sounds a LOT easier, but I'm concerned that it may muck up access to active system stuff such as plumbing and wiring.  I'll report back with results in a week or so.

"Although LEVEL QUICK is not self-leveling, when mixed to a thinner consistency, it can
be poured on and troweled smooth."

 

[Tinker]

Tinker - there's no rot below, and there wasn't any water damage (no white powder mildew or mold ugliness anywhere) that I've noticed when we pulled the paneling out of the lower part of the walls.  I think that it's the function of having lived through two major earthquakes (7.8 in 1906 and 7.1 in 1989).

I see that house has been around awhile.  Is there any level floor or plumb wall in it?
I have only felt very mild EQ's here in Connecticut & western Massachusetts.  i need enlightenment :-\

I don't understand (my own ignorance here) how the floor could go so out of whack unless there was serious shifting of foundations.  since foundation is seemingly still in tact, is the deformity due to a lacking of detail in proper sizing of the support lumber.  (2x10, 2x10-1/2, 2x10-3/4 etc.)  I grew up in an old house of around 1860 era (house, not me :) in which the old floor beams were of chestnut logs.  Some of the ends where they attached to sills were cut unevenly and made for an uneven floor.  As a matter of fact, even the newer section of the house was way out of level and plumb.  atleast the new part (1930 something) had all out of level and plumb, but atleast everything was straight.

The house i live in now is also (50 year old) way out of level and plumb.  It is very interresting to line every new project up so it matches existing walls and floors.  You learn all about creating optical illusions in every direction.  A lot of fun.  You are learning a whole lot about construction by tackling the problems in your 100+ year old house. 
Tinker

 

[b_m_hart]

So, I pulled up the underlayment, and all of the nails and staples that were left behind.  That was a LOT of fun, let me tell you.  Also, Tinker was correct - there was water damage, I just didn't see it until I got down far enough.  The interesting thing is that it looks like the original subfloor is not rotted, nor are the supports that I can see from the basement.  I'm not sure what to make of it (the voice in the back of my head says that it's too easy), because there's some water damage on the outside of the building that was painted over - a truly classy move.

Anyway, there are a couple of other issues that also reared their ugly heads during all of this.  There's a second crown, but inside the kitchen.  Fixing this would mean pulling up all of the cabinets, the HEAVY counter tops, and re-doing all of the backsplash.  Yeah, that's not happening.  I'll address the work-around later.  Anyway, here are some pics:

Here's a shot of the floor, there's a seam in the original sub-floor that runs the length of the room.  This is where the issue is, and it's substantially more dramatic than it looked at first glance:

[attachimg=1]

So, following the advice from earlier in this thread, I went about making shims.  I cut them from 2x4s, such that they would wedge perfectly under the new underlayment.  Here's a shot from the side:

[attachimg=2]

And this is what it looks like from above:

[attachimg=3]

The shim is 1 5/8" at the very end, and tapers over 2'7" down to nothing (on a straight line).  I figure that if I space these out every six inches (so about four and a half inches between them) that ought to do.  Also, the floor isn't perfectly level.  From all I've read about installing floor tile, ensuring that the floor is co-planar is the most important thing.  So, that's what I've done.  You've got to be pretty perceptive to pick up on this being out of level, I'd hope:
[attachimg=4]

 

[Eli]

How does it look at the door?

 

[b_m_hart]

There's a slight "hop" between the old and new underlayment, but that was intentional.  The plan is to use some of that self leveling goop between the crown in the kitchen (which is substantially smaller than this, there's roughly a quarter of an inch difference), so it levels between the crown and the "step".

Also, there's a door to the outside, and that will not be impacted, so both are fine.

Also, I received some feedback by email that particle board was particularly bad for this application.  Anyone able to provide some feedback as to why?  Now that I've gone back and looked, we used MDF, rather than particle board.  I understand that they're different products, but do they perform similarly?  I've got a fairly solid subfloor in place already, and as suggested earlier, I'm going to use the Schluter Ditra product over the underlayment.

 

[Dan Lyke]

Also, I received some feedback by email that particle board was particularly bad for this application.

I've actually been told by a number of people that I should use particle board for sub-floors, because it's so moisture sensitive that if there's a leak in the floor the buckling and distortion will make the problem instantly obvious. With exterior plywood, for instance, you could go for years and years without knowing that there's a leak in your floor, potentially leading to rot in places you really don't want to deal with.

 

[Tinker]

In your situation, if the particle board got wet, you might need to tear the whole thing out as, for all practicality, the sub floor you show is also the only support.  If you have a base of ply under the particle board, you could get away with just cutting out the damages portions.

Your work with the wedges is time consuming, but well worth while.  Every bit of time and energy.  Spacing them closer together makes sense, but the space between makes them the same as laying you subflooring on joists with no underlayment between subfloor and tile.  I don't think you will be sorry for the close spacing.

Don't be too concerned with level. As someone told you, coplaner is important.  When i was learning the trades, the builders i worked with worked only on old buildings and remodels.  That was back in the late 40's and early 50's.  When you consider some of those houses were 50 years old and more then, think how old they would be now. 

My house is now 50 years old and you can not put a marble down anywhere and expect to find it after 2 seconds. I think the only level spot in the entire house is the kitchen counter.  Somehow, I made it level, but you cannot tell by looking that the floor is an inch and quarter out of level and walls 3/4" out of plumb.  You just don't notice.  The prefabbed cabinets all fit without (hardly) a hint of the construction abnormalities.  That is what I meant earlier about learning to make optical illusions.  That science can be very interresting.  And fun  :
Tinker