2nd floor not level- first floor no problem (flooring, Lowes, windows)
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In the house below which is for sale the floor between the first and second story is not evenly flat - its a wooden floor and towards the back of the house bends down pretty sharply and has been like that for 10 years. I would say the back is about 5 inches lower. It all feels hard, there's no give in the floor but its like going down a hill.
My questions to someone who knows construction are:
1. What might this be?
2. How can this be fixed ?
3. What might be a ball park cost- the space is about 1200 ft?
4. Is there a danger of anything else breaking?
The house is for sale and it will be quite a while before I'm back there (el Paso ) to get a look.
I had posted this in the wrong place-this forum is better.
In the house below which is for sale the floor between the first and second story is not evenly flat - its a wooden floor and towards the back of the house bends down pretty sharply and has been like that for 10 years. I would say the back is about 5 inches lower. It all feels hard, there's no give in the floor but its like going down a hill.
My questions to someone who knows construction are:
1. What might this be?
2. How can this be fixed ?
3. What might be a ball park cost- the space is about 1200 ft?
4. Is there a danger of anything else breaking?
The house is for sale and it will be quite a while before I'm back there (el Paso ) to get a look.
I had posted this in the wrong place-this forum is better.
Well gees this sounds like the classic problem of somebody measured something wrong during the original framing. Like one section of wall was too short. Seems incredible that you could even put it together. But crazy things do happen, the dudes had to know it was wrong, 5" is a huge amount to be off. The top plates would not line up around the parimeter.
You would want to do a complete survey to verify the errors in the floor. To really tell what has occurred, probably have to remove the interior or exterior skin to eyeball the framing itself. See how they put things together, just about impossible to guess how you can get that type of error. Maybe if the joists were somehow run under the top plates in one section and then nailed in place, makes no sense really.
Once you know how the error was generated then can come up with a strategy to fix it. Got to get that far along before you can speculate on anything else. Don't tell me some inspector signed off on that house. Yep, probably did pass inspection.
First thing to do is understand how they did the construction in detail. You got to be able to see the framing. Maybe the crew was all drunk that day, sounds like more work than doing it right.
Have you lived in this house ten years? If not, how do you know it's been ten years?
If it was conventional framing, then Cos is right, must have been drunk framers.
While balloon framing is not all that common, something like this is possible with that style. The ledger board holding up that section of flooring was either installed out of level, or something has failed and it has slipped.
If there are no other signs of a problem, such as cracks in the walls, ceilings, etc., one would have to assume it was built that way.
But 5"? WOW!
The real estate broker told me when she first sold it ten years ago- the floor was like that. Maybe is only 3 inches -thing is I'm 650 miles away and cant check.
Just guessing what is the MOST and What is the least it could cost to fix?
Just a guess...as the information is a bit sparse...could this be a 2nd floor covered porch that somebody closed up years back? I've been in several older homes that had a 2nd floor porch - usually to the north or east - for sleeping in warm weather. Sometime or another an owner sided up the openings, put in some windows and made it into an additional "year round" room or rooms. The reason the floor slopes was to drain off rain intrusion and snow melt back when it was an open air area. Again, just a guess - but if this is right you don't have anything to worry about as the floor was designed to slope in the first place. What you do need to worry about is adequate heating if this was what was done.
I do not see the photo. Is it appearing for everyone else.
I think windtimber makes a good point. Also- someone may have miss ordered/miscut and the ends of the joists are actually not sitting on a ledge or ledger.
What also might be occuring is that the built the home using trusses and they were compromised at the rear. I have dealt with an eighties era place that has wood top and bottom chords for the truss and metal barcing between the two. The metal bracing had popped off where a wall beneath was not allowing deflection and caused the problem to appear as an issue from above and not below. Openned the ceiling anticipating one set of fixes and realized another. That was rather specific to that craptacular brand of truss. This might also occur with all wood trusses if someone 'adjusted' them to accomodate plumbing or mechanical because they hadn't properly coordinated.
Post the pic again and someone might have dealt with the same issue but I think you'll need to view it from above or below to figure it out.
There is the link -thought I posted this topic in the wrong thread but it gets about the same response.
This view of the house is from the southwest - in other words the southwest portion is facing the camera. The biggest slant is towards the back of the house in the NORTHwest section would would be to the left part of the picture -back of the house..
Ok here is the bedroom - the corner thats lowest is the to the left back
dont know if this helps
Last edited by ocean2026; 02-02-2009 at 12:21 AM..
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Sounds like somebody measured wrong.......
