A weird floor dip in a 1950s house turned a 4 hour job into a 12 hour nightmare

I was putting carpet in a living room last week, a normal rectangle. The floor felt okay when I walked on it. But when I laid the pad down and started stretching, I found a soft spot right in the middle, a dip about an inch deep and three feet wide. The homeowner had no idea it was there. I had to pull everything up, cut out a section of the subfloor, and sister in new joists to level it. What should have been a simple install took me from 8 AM to 8 PM. Has anyone else hit a hidden floor issue that blew up the whole day? What's your fix?

4 comments

4 Comments

tessaw961mo ago

That sounds brutal, but at least you found it before the furniture went in lol.

emma_jones1mo ago

But what if the damage was worse than you thought? Finding it early just means you have to fix it now instead of later, @tessaw96. That's still a huge pain and extra cost right away.

price.linda1mo ago

Ugh, totally! We had the same shock with our water heater, @tessaw96. Finding it early still stings, but way less than a total disaster later.

robin8961mo agoTop Commenter

My buddy found a small leak early but it still wrecked his whole kitchen floor, so I get what you mean.

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