house/basement leveling

[Lungdeflator]

 

[guywhofishes]

So lifting the entire house on the west sounds prohibitively expensive. Also - most of the issue is a 1" drop across a 18' span or so

The remodel could address the ceiling level upstairs (covering the old popcorn ceiling with shiplap). And a suspended ceiling could address the "tilt" in the basement. The basement floor tilt?... meh. Don't care.

But upstairs we're going to go with luxury planking. If any of you framing geniuses have any ideas for leveling out the living room floor please PM me. I think I have an idea that might work.

Or is "self-leveling" compound capable of handling 1" differences?

 

[WormWiggler]

let me grasp this, is the whole house sinking as a unit but not at the same right, like east is 0" from original and west is 2" from original? or is the walls compressing at different rates so your change is different on basement floor vs. upstairs floor?

 

[Retired Educator]

Leveled a wood floor one time on a remodel. Tore up all the flooring so only floor joists were left. This was a 100-year old house that was being remodeled and no further sinking. Added floor joists to existing joists so new floor was level. Imagine the new joists being pie-shaped to the old joists. When finished if you didn't take a tape measure to the ceiling you never knew the difference. Not that big a job as the floor was being replaced, similar to what you are doing. Used a laser level to assure all new joists were level the entire distance of replacement.

 

[guywhofishes]

There's a hallway running north/south on the north half of the basement. Same upstairs (although not perfectly aligned).

Main floor joists run east west.

The entire basement is listing east/west by maybe 1.5"... but the west half, both upstairs and downstairs, accounts for at least an inch of the drop to the west.

There's a north/south oriented support beam on the south side of the basement (it's a great room where there's no hallway or other rooms to help hold the floor up)

The "east half" of the main floor is pretty good from east toward that center support I-beam... the west half is where it really drops.

The skanky old suspended ceiling in the basement is gone so it's wide open.

So I am pondering whether I could loosen up the flooring on the main level and sliding additional joists in along the original ones to hold up just the flooring... basically sliding 2x8s alongside the 2x10 or (2x12's?) Get them in level (1" higher on west end than the originals), holding up the flooring. Use construction adhesive and screws to attach the "extension joists" to the originals - in order to achieve proper "lift" of the flooring on the low end by the necessary 1 to 1.5". Everything else stays in place. Screw the flooring to the extension joists rather than the originals.

I can't imagine leveling compound is up to the task of 1 or 1.5" leveling - is it?

I should have taken shop class. : (

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ba ha ha - what Educator said!

 

[espringers]

i sort of did this for my house when i remodeled the basement. mine has a support wall running down the center lengthwise and it slopes about an inch in 15 feet on the east and west sides. caused by the cinderblock bowing in. not quite the same as you cause my basement floor is level. but, if you are ok with the basement floor being unlevel for now, i would take a big old beam or two or three, run it (or them) the length of the sagging side. get some of those screw jacks take some pressure off the sagging concrete support wall, try to cut whatever it is that is connecting the sill to the concrete with a sawsall or something cooler like one of those big old concrete metal wet saw thingys cause i assume there might be some rebar or other anchors tieing the sill to the concrete, jack it up until level and insert the necessary wood to fill the gap you created. remove braces and jack and set it down. problem with that is you are going to have a pie or triangle shape gap running at the ends from one end to the other that will be hard to adequately fill to provide true support for the sill and the concrete. a long triangle piece going from 2 inches to nothing over the course of 10-20 feet will be hard to cut. but not impossible. this is assuming its done settling. also, would have to figure out a way to tie the new stuff to the sill after setting back down. but, figure some metal strappy thingamajjiggers would work..

on mine, all i had to do was take the pressure off the existing walls and put an interior wall up to support support the existing weight and prevent future bowing of the wall.

have fun!

 

[Retired Educator]

Sounds pretty much like what we did. Attached new joists to the existing joists with screws. Wouldn't really matter which way the existing joists run as long as you attach to same joists the pattern is the same. Our use of a rotating laser was pretty handy but a fairly long straight-edge that you could use with a level would do the same thing. The rotating laser is also very handy if you are going to replace the suspended ceiling at some point. I'm thinking that 2 or 3 of us did a 32X16 ft room in about a week or less. That is demo, straighten out the joists and new flooring. Demo was tearing out an old hardwood floor which takes a little longer tearing out that many boards.

 

[Wags2.0]

i sort of did this for my house when i remodeled the basement. mine has a support wall running down the center lengthwise and it slopes about an inch in 15 feet on the east and west sides. caused by the cinderblock bowing in. not quite the same as you cause my basement floor is level. but, if you are ok with the basement floor being unlevel for now, i would take a big old beam or two or three, run it (or them) the length of the sagging side. get some of those screw jacks take some pressure off the sagging concrete support wall, try to cut whatever it is that is connecting the sill to the concrete with a sawsall or something cooler like one of those big old concrete metal wet saw thingys cause i assume there might be some rebar or other anchors tieing the sill to the concrete, jack it up until level and insert the necessary wood to fill the gap you created. remove braces and jack and set it down. problem with that is you are going to have a pie or triangle shape gap running at the ends from one end to the other that will be hard to adequately fill to provide true support for the sill and the concrete. a long triangle piece going from 2 inches to nothing over the course of 10-20 feet will be hard to cut. but not impossible. this is assuming its done settling. also, would have to figure out a way to tie the new stuff to the sill after setting back down. but, figure some metal strappy thingamajjiggers would work..

on mine, all i had to do was take the pressure off the existing walls and put an interior wall up to support support the existing weight and prevent future bowing of the wall.

have fun!

Uh. No

 

[Kurtr]

i sort of did this for my house when i remodeled the basement. mine has a support wall running down the center lengthwise and it slopes about an inch in 15 feet on the east and west sides. caused by the cinderblock bowing in. not quite the same as you cause my basement floor is level. but, if you are ok with the basement floor being unlevel for now, i would take a big old beam or two or three, run it (or them) the length of the sagging side. get some of those screw jacks take some pressure off the sagging concrete support wall, try to cut whatever it is that is connecting the sill to the concrete with a sawsall or something cooler like one of those big old concrete metal wet saw thingys cause i assume there might be some rebar or other anchors tieing the sill to the concrete, jack it up until level and insert the necessary wood to fill the gap you created. remove braces and jack and set it down. problem with that is you are going to have a pie or triangle shape gap running at the ends from one end to the other that will be hard to adequately fill to provide true support for the sill and the concrete. a long triangle piece going from 2 inches to nothing over the course of 10-20 feet will be hard to cut. but not impossible. this is assuming its done settling. also, would have to figure out a way to tie the new stuff to the sill after setting back down. but, figure some metal strappy thingamajjiggers would work..

on mine, all i had to do was take the pressure off the existing walls and put an interior wall up to support support the existing weight and prevent future bowing of the wall.

have fun!

if this route is taken I would love to watch.

 

[DirtyMike]

just get a couple bags of quikcrete and fill in the 2".

signed,

not a construction guy

 

[TakItEz]

 

[Wags2.0]

I mean this is really the only viable option in my professional opinion

 

[Kurtr]

these will go with the shoes

 

[guywhofishes]

so is there a self-leveling underlayment process that would work OK? Can it be applied in 1-1.5" thicknesses?

 

[Wags2.0]

so is there a self-leveling underlayment process that would work OK? Can it be applied in 1-1.5" thicknesses?

yes... but its gonna take A LOT. your plan with the 2x8's seems like it would work fine. Make sure to think ahead about doors that may be affected

 

[Davey Crockett]

Kurt, Have you ever been around Gypcrete ? It used to be advertised as a completed floor system but now they advertise it as an underlayment , It must not have panned out as well as they had planned ?

 

[Wags2.0]

Kurt, Have you ever been around Gypcrete ? It used to be advertised as a completed floor system but now they advertise it as an underlayment , It must not have panned out as well as they had planned ?

We use it in hotel and apartment builds all the time as an underlayment. Works good and ups the fire ratings. It drys damn fast so not the greatest leveler but it does that too to an extent

 

[guywhofishes]

it also quiets things down I bet

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yes... but its gonna take A LOT. your plan with the 2x8's seems like it would work fine. Make sure to think ahead about doors that may be affected

luckily just one

 

[Kurtr]

Kurt, Have you ever been around Gypcrete ? It used to be advertised as a completed floor system but now they advertise it as an underlayment , It must not have panned out as well as they had planned ?

actually just did a house here last week with it first time i had seen it. Like wags said drys real fast but maybe doing smaller sections it could work

 

[nytebyte]

There are a few self leveling compounds out there that might work. Soniflow and Ardex are a couple that come to mind