Stiffining A Floor

Use a floor sanding machine and edge sander or sand by hand.

Stiffining a floor. No one likes the feel of a supposedly solid floor bouncing or sagging underfoot. There are a variety of ways to stiffen a floor. The area in particular is in the center of the room between the fridge and the dishwasher. How to fix springy and spongy floors.

Stiffening up a wood floor my friend tara bought a house a few years ago and she always felt that the floors in this house were a little bit soft. It s a span of 10 feet. This article will show you three better ways to take the bounce out of a floor. The floor hardly bounced at all and the client was happy.

The basement is finished and i don t want to tear out the dry walled ceiling. A springy or spongy feeling could indicate a minor issue a major problem or. Vacuum floor between each sanding and when finished. Sand floor in direction of grain of the wood.

But i know now that we could have made that floor just as stiff even stiffer with a lot less trouble and expense. Even if your floor already has a row of bridging running down the center you can stiffen it substantially by adding two more rows. Photos by mike guertin except where noted. The catch of course is that the bouncy floor joists must be accessible from below.

I have a kitchen floor that bounces whenever we walk on it. Bridging allows each joist to share weight with its neighbors and can cut deflection how much the joists flex by half. Even structurally sound code compliant new floors can deflect or flex more than feels comfortable. Stiffening bouncy floor with plywood.

Tom s house was built in 1765 but bouncy floors aren t just an old house problem. The method or methods tom chooses depend as much on practicality as on effectiveness. The floor in question is supported by 2x10 s every 16 with a span of 14. So she asked me if i could do anything to stiffen them up a bit.

Too much bounce though can make the china cabinet wobble. The effectiveness of your floor stiffening work. You can stiffen the floor in just one room or in as many rooms as you like. Leveling a floor can be either a do it yourself project or a job for the pros depending on what s causing the problem.

If sanding by hand use 3 different grits of sandpaper 30 60 and 80. You can shore up floor joists and reduce the bounce in a number of ways but the six methods outlined here represent a mix of common and not so. David grandpré is a registered professional engineer with c a. Often age related settling results in an uneven floor which is likely.