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Im helping remodel a 1905 Duplex.
Can anyone tell me what happens to make floors so uneven/warped?
Anyone dealt with this?
Is the house on a basement or crawl space? I'd check out the structure. May need piers reset or have some beams needing replaced or repaired. If the piers are good and the posts, check for any signs of dry rot, termite damage to the sub floor.
House sits on a crawl space,the Apartment being worked on is on the second floor.
Pulled the carpet and had to scub newspaper off the wood floor(newspaper(1956)
All the floors are uneven pretty much.
Other than structural issues, which can cause warping from tension or compression, one of the best ways to understand what can happen is to buy a single decking board and leave it outside without nailing it into position. It will cup along the grain, it will warp, it will twist, and by the time it has set outside for a few months it can be completely unusable. All of this is from the natural properties of the wood and the moisture and uneven drying.
When wood is used in construction, the floor joists and other structural components try to form a solid structure that can resist the worst of those effects. However, if one side of wood is wetter than the other, certain deformations can happen. Even if the wood later dries, some of those will remain.
How the problem is treated varies. Drying a moist area, vapor barriers, a few months of heating, physical reworking of the structure, all of those are potential fixes. The primary thought is often to stabilize the situation before making any drastic moves. If a house has been unoccupied, keeping it heated and cooled for a month before sanding floors is wise. If there is an obvious moisture problem, correcting it and then waiting a month or two is wise. In worst case scenarios, demolition and reconstruction may be the best option.
So many times this is the cause of messed up wood floors. The roof leaked sometime in the house history. Lots of water got in on the floor. Can really do the job on them. Once well soaked even if they dry out again, warp and buckle like the dickens.
See it in just about all fire rehab jobs. Fire boys chopped holes in the roof. Owners did not act fast enough after the fire to get things water proof again. Upper floors are ruined in every room, sometimes in the entire house. Most fire jobs the floors can not salvaged in some parts of the house. Cover with thin plywood and carpet is the plan of the day.
Nothing else usually has enough big time moisture exposure to do the job like some failure in the roof that lets in lots of water every time it rains.
Maybe check that roof over good this time. Don't want it to happen a second time.
Wood constantly moves and this is hard on teh fastenign system made to keep it in place. Over time wood alos wants to shrink . Too dry can be almost as bad as too damp and if it varies that can be the worse of all. It alos depends on how ell dried the wood was befopre being put down. The of course there is the fondation moving and opften the worse culprit of all.That thing as only had 100 yaars to move;so not surprising really.
I'm going to go with structural damage. Look for mushroomed joist and girders. Also look for piers that are not sitting up against the framing. In some cases sister joist can be used and in others you may need to just remove what's there and put new wood. It will depend on your situation. In both cases hydraulic jacks will be needed and when we used to do these type of repair we used 20 ton jacks and built a platform wide enough to support what needed to be done. Most likely you'll just need a structural repair specialist. Of course I could be dead wrong and it could be moisture issues but in most cases they went hand in hand in my area. I've even seen a 3/4" spot of grout missing in a shower cost a home owner $10,000 in repairs.
If this is just one room affected in a pretty big house got to be pretty sure it is some type of major leak or maybe even prolonged water event in the past.
Structural type movements, settling etc will generally affect the entire house. Plus it will not be just floors, doors will bind, windows won't open, etc. Other things will be affected. Cracks in the ceilings, walls, etc, sloping floors, you will see it in other clues. Will tend to be more wide spread across the house. Even will show in places like external siding or whatever is there. Gaps around doors will be uneven, lots of binding problems.
I don't put much creditability into long term minor moisture from humidity, the general weather and climate related. Doesn't happen in most even very old houses. The wood may shrink and you get cracks in between the floor boards but it does not buckle or warp in a severe type mode.
So this can be narrowed down by the OP answering how many other rooms are affected? If only the one isolated room, pretty slam dunk sure it was a major type roof leak or water damage event of some type in the past, isolated to that one particular room or area. Seen it a bunch of times. Floor was not salvagable after. Quite unusable as a hardwood floor. It starts to splinter in spots too. Could also be this was a wash room in the past, either for laundry or bath out of a tin tub, got water on a regular basis. That happened in many old houses. Splash, splash in the tub heated on a wood stove. Could have been used for laundry purposes too. Whatever usually restricted to limited area for longer extended times, like in this case years, that is another possible thread to follow up on.
Do the logic, turn the crank.
What can the OP add that helps decide further??? Is there other similar floors in other rooms, is there other types of damage showing in walls, ceiling, doors binding, windows not opening, in other areas of the house???? Or is this the only bad boy area in the entire house? Inquiring minds want to know!
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Lets see...............
