Hey all you installers.
We all know subfloors are rarely flat and we usually have to do a little fixing at times. And sometimes a lot of fixing. Well, check this out.
I'm laying an Award longstrip in this home and I'm almost done and getting ready to start on the upstairs hallway. It's a regular hall, nothing special. Well, after carpet removal, my helper calls me and says there's a problem with the subfloor and there's a high spot. So I take my edger out there the next day to sand down the high spot and put my straight edge across the wood subfloor. The floor drops off 1&3/4" in about 4'. NO LIE! I can't believe it. Turns out that this is where the first floor wall and door to the garage are and it ends up right in the middle of the hallway. Obviously a framing screw up that every decided to bury under carpet. Well, no way that wood is going to work over this subfloor so what to do? I informed the homeowners and showed them the hieght difference. They agreed that it needed to be flatened (leveled) but now, the bedroom floors with carpet are almost 2" lower at the doors and I gotta cut the doors and I laid a bunch of plywood in varying thicknesses to taper up to the high place. This is a track house built in the 70's in a good neighborhood. Someone screwed up and by the time they found it, no one wanted to lose their job over it so they buried it. This kinda shoddy crap really burns me up. Now the homeowners are wondering what else is wrong with their house. I'd been doing some flatening downstairs already but this area takes the prize. It's a 3.5" wide hallway, about 10' long and halfway down, you walk downhill. I think they forgot to add the extra top plate when they framed up the garage walls because the low areas sit over the garage. IDIOTS!

I hear ya Gary. I could have authored your post, only this job for tile, 18 x 18 rectified porcelain on a diagonal. I have to get this floor flat as a flitter and meet an L/720 deflection like a natural stone installation.

Most of my jobs are tiled floors and building showers. I would rather have hardwood jobs any day.

I might have to call Chuck in on this one .

I feel your pain!!


That is one of the reasons I refuse to put a firm number on hidden floor prep.

Time & Materials!

Sounds like business as usual on NEW homes here in North Idaho .... Especially if thier done by the housing nazis ... I mean associations ...