Fixing slanted floors

Both of the above posters are correct. Tomorrow AM I will be starting a floor leveling job, and even with considerable experience, I have no confidence that I won’t run into a dismaying condition. It does have a significant ripple effect, and you can’t stuff it back into the box once you start. I’m proud of many dramatic improvements I’ve performed, but of all categories of job, these are among the least predictable.

brucef

in Flooring 11 years and 2 months ago

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alexbklyn | 11 years and 2 months ago

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Hi all, I’m looking at renovating a unit in a prewar co-op and I noticed that in several rooms the floors are quite slanted. I don’t have a good sense how difficult or expensive leveling the floors would be. Can anyone here give me a very rough idea if leveling the floors would be very expensive on a price/sq foot basis? I don’t have any information about the underlying structure, but I’m guessing due to the age of the building it’s probably beams and joists? Thanks! A.

mruby36 | 11 years and 2 months ago

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So, it depends… There is no way to put a square foot cost on this type of project, each situation will be different. A better question is needed to get a better answer but I would still be dubious of an off the shelf square foot cost. Better question = better answer: Do you have access from underneath? Lifting the ceiling underneath of course lifts the floor above. If you have to level the floor from within the unit, the existing finish floor and subsequent subfloor layers underneath would have to be removed to get at the floor framing and add in what’s needed to level things up. Then there is the question of what leveling the floor in one room does to the transition of one room to adjacent rooms… So, it depends… if you’d like to discuss this further, please feel free to call. Matt R www.nyc-hs.com

dorkofwindsor | 11 years and 2 months ago

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sistering and leveling floor joists means you have to rip out all your floors. they will probably want to slap new joists to the old ones, and hopefully there is room to do so. then you will have to change the base molding, address lead paint issues, plane ALL doors, and hope that there are no other things you can “unremember” that you might have seen while the floors are open. finally, you will need to be OK that your floor is leveled and your ceilings and all windows and door frames are slanted. A big job? Yes, it can be huge. if this is just a sagging floor (normal since most houses were built with green wet wood joists), then maybe they can just rip out and shim. (a big job just for some sag). As you can see, it can be a massive undertaking and is usually done as part of a either a significant reno or gut reno, one where you may not want to live while work is ongoing.