Flooring Problem

spence101

Hello, I'm not really a DIY buff, but I'm reasonably handy, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

There has been a creek in the floors in my front room and a little give for a while now, so I decided to lift up half the carpet thinking it would only need a few screws but it was really a mess under there.

At the problem area there is a 8 cm gap between where one set of joists end and the other start, there seems to be a number of bridging joists about 20cm long along this gap. On one side of these joists there is plywood while on the other side it seems to be some sort of pvc chipboard. The chipboard seems to be fraying and weak at the corner as the corner is not on a joist.

What I thought about doing was adding another bridging joist between the two main joists so the corner of the chipboard has support, it'll be an awkward job because the plywood floor cannot be moved. The two main joists also do not align, there is about a 3-5cm difference.

Any advice on how to move forward, I'm skint by the way so replacing the chipboard is not an option at the moment, I do have some good wood left from another project.

cheers.

http://i.imgur.com/U8GKf.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PuWq3.jpg

antiskeptic

spence101 wrote: »

Hello, I'm not really a DIY buff, but I'm reasonably handy, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

There has been a creek in the floors in my front room and a little give for a while now, so I decided to lift up half the carpet thinking it would only need a few screws but it was really a mess under there.

At the problem area there is a 8 cm gap between where one set of joists end and the other start, there seems to be a number of bridging joists about 20cm long along this gap. On one side of these joists there is plywood while on the other side it seems to be some sort of pvc chipboard. The chipboard seems to be fraying and weak at the corner as the corner is not on a joist.

What I thought about doing was adding another bridging joist between the two main joists so the corner of the chipboard has support, it'll be an awkward job because the plywood floor cannot be moved. The two main joists also do not align, there is about a 3-5cm difference.

Any advice on how to move forward, I'm skint by the way so replacing the chipboard is not an option at the moment, I do have some good wood left from another project.

cheers.

http://i.imgur.com/U8GKf.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PuWq3.jpg

Firstly an aside. You don't make mention of what's filling in this 8cm gap under normal conditions. I assume there is a narrow length of plywood/chipboard material sitting on these 'bridging joists' and you've removed it to gain access? If not, it would appear the gap was spanned by the carpet and underlay. Which would be a darn sight more problematic than a squeaky floor

The usual way to deal with this is to remove the chipboard sheet that's fallen short of the joist, screw a length of 2x1 to the side of the joist and lay the sheet back down. The just-short edge would now sit on the 2x1. A screw or two and you're done.

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It may be that you can't easily lift the chipboard, or that it'll break up with the manhandling. In which case, the following workaround.

Obtain a piece of 1/4 ply or MDF (or an offcut of 1.5-2mm steel sheet if you've access to a friendly metal fabrication shop who'll allow you to rummage in their waste bin for nowt). It needs to be about as long as the length of the edge of the chipboard which is stopping short of the joist. And about 300-400mm wide. Chadwicks throw out ply packing material so a rummage would do it for you.

Buy a cartridge of Evostick Panel Adhesive (I think it's called Gun-o-prene as well) If you don't want to cough up for cartridge gun you can push the piston in with a stick after chopping off an inch of nozzle and piercing the foil seal at the base of the nozzle

Cover one side of the board with marble sized globs of adhesive leaving about an inch between them. Then stick the panel down on the top of the floor - half on the supported chipboard / half on the unsupported chipboard. Once laid, slide it back and forward and side to side a half inch whilst pressing down to smear the adhesive evenly over the area. Although you can go ahead and cover up with the carpet, leave 3 days before walking on it. The glue is excellent but it needs some time to dry fully.

Trim the underlay neatly back to the edge of this panel. If there is a difference between underlay thickness and the panel (at a 1/4 inch the panel should be below the underlay if at all) you can fill up by using thin panels of ply which you can pick up in the waste bin in Chadwicks. It's used as a packaging material for a lot of the stuff they get in. Ask one of the yard lads to let you rummage. Slice this to size with a Stanley knife of cut with a scissors. Glue it down in the same way - using much smaller dabs of panel adhesive. You wouldn't notice a thin sheet of steel under the underlay


Q.E.D.

Carlow52

look like where an old fire place hearth was.

I would lift the chip and see whats what underneath.

Depending on the distances it may be possible to run new joists back under the ply to the dwarf wall and support them properly where the chip is.

u may need to level out the crap under neath and lay some concrete to level it all up

If u cant get to the dwarf wall, given that its ply, u could screw the new joists to the ply with good 6mm diameter pozi wood screws at 6" centres and then run on under the chip.

In any event I would be reluctant to glue anything as its game over getting easy access if needed