Q: Hi. We had the original hardwood floors in our 1930 home refinished a year ago. We now have several soft spots where part of the 2in strip has cracked and is pushing into the subfloor. But there doesn’t seem to be subfloor. The crawlspace is really skinny in these areas, so I am hoping for a solution that doesn’t involve fixing from underneath.
A: It certainly sounds like there is a dip in the sub floor beneath the strip. You could drill a tiny hole and squirt some expandable adhesive into the hole. It will seep under that strip and expand to fill the void. Bostik Findley makes a product just for this. Best place to start looking would be a local wood flooring retailer.
Follow-up Q: Sorry, I wasn’t clear in my original message – there is no subfloor. It’s a house from back in the era where the hardwood was the floor.
A: Oh, ok. I’ve only seen this type of installation a few times. Floor installed directly to the joists. So, brand new it would have been at least 3/4″ thick. The ends of the boards in question then stop between the joists. Short of having a way to fix this from beneath you would have to remove and replace at least the boards in question, probably a few surrounding. Perhaps these floors have been sanded several times over the years, eventually weakening the boards in question.
Second Follow-up Q: Thanks. Time to slither under and try to reinforce from below.
Related Questions
Uneven subfloor causing floor to liftI recently installed a Bruce floating engineered wood floor. In one particular area I had an uneven subfloor that I attempted to fix with wood putty. I also added an extra layer of the roofing felt to help build up the area. Once I felt that it was even enough,…
Hardwood floor installed over concreteI am having a hardwood floor installed over concrete. My installer said that he uses a thick epoxy glue and installs directly over the concrete. A friend told me that I should have some kind of a barrier?
Will a particle board subfloor squeak and move?I am planning to replace my carpets with hardwood. The subfloor is particleboard. I have heard that rather than installing a plywood subfloor (since it will increase the level of the floor) I can just re-secure the particleboard against the joists. Will this work? I understand that nails do not…
Shellac was used to fill dip in floor?Q: We had oak flooring installed, stained and a matte finish applied. A few months after a board dropped (under flooring board must have cracked or something) and left a 1/4 inch tripping hazard. The floor guy came in and applied a shellac like fill which hardened well, filled the…
Glue on subfloorI am installing 3/4" hardwood flooring in my kitchen and dining room. Currently there is carpet. I have been pulling the carpet up, however, there is a lot of glue still left on the floor. Do I have to remove the glue? Can I just lay the felt paper over…
Even out subfloor for floating floorQ: In removing vinyl tile from a subfloor, some of the plywood layer came up with the tiles. There are still spots with a lot of glue on them in which the tiles came up fine. I checked and saw that this is only a 3/8" thick piece of plywood,…