Demo Day and Subfloor Problems

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At least 4 hours into demo day. No pillow needed for a nap.

DEMO DAY!  Many of us totally connect with Chip Gaines’ battle cry (co-star of Fixer Upper on HGTV)  on the first day of any house remodel. There is an insane amount of progress in a very short amount of time.  It is rewarding!  However, any anger, aggression, and excitement is totally gone by the time you hit the second hour. And then you keep going, uncovering problem, after problem, after problem…

I had already planned on a total gut and remodel of the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room along with a full replacement of the electrical system. Unfortunately as a first time homeowner and remodeler, I did not anticipate the level of gutting and rebuilding necessary due to hidden subfloor problems.

Major Problem #1

The first big snag was the corner of the house next to the previous location of the sink. We found a significant slope headed the wrong direction (down) hidden under the bank of cabinets.  The subfloor was kinda squishy.  By kinda, I am saying I was in denial and it was actually really squishy.  I knew there was no way I could lay tile over the surface in that condition.  I could, but I should save myself the hassle of pretending to attach it to the floor: just set the tile down and call it good.

What could possibly be wrong here?

We had to determine the source of the subfloor problems and fix them.  This involved opening up the subfloor.  A small hole quickly turned into a big hole which turned into the entire subfloor of the kitchen leaving only the floor joists.  Even the floor joists turned out to be part of the problem.  Whatever happened in the corner had rotted out even the floor joists, sill plate and header joist alongside that wall.  These materials between the brick foundation and the subfloor had rotted away.  I could, and DID take chunks apart with my hand and they weighed nothing.

So much for the home inspector telling me this was one of the best house foundations he’s ever seen. Well, the problem was not the foundation, but the subfloor and floor joists on the foundation . Did he miss this problem? Was it an oversight?  Maybe he started inspecting homes the previous month?

Our flooring demolition discovery experience leads to…

Lesson #1: Go everywhere in your potential house.

If you have a pier and beam house that means go under your house even if you are afraid of the dark or spiders. Go in your attic too. You should be more afraid of what you find later if you don’t. A good home inspector* will find these problems, but it is better to see it for yourself. The home inspector could have had a bad day and miss something that turns into a huge problem later. It also helps to know the extent of problems by looking with your own two eyes.  Surprises after signing final paperwork with keys in hand is a little too late.

What could possibly be wrong here?

As you can see in the picture, there was some attempt at fixing likely water damage in the kitchen corner in the past.  Perhaps my first clue should have been noticing the plywood immediately behind the old location of the kitchen sink and adjacent cabinets. There were a few pieces of the original shiplap wood siding replaced by plywood under the exterior vinyl siding. Perhaps this is why there is vinyl siding in the first place? Was an old plumbing leak why there was newer PEX pipes installed?

I think we solved the mystery of the repairs in the corner of the kitchen when we opened everything up. Yet, that work was incomplete. We inherited the problems the previous old leaking plumbing created within the kitchen floors and supporting structure. Water damage led to decay of the sill plate, floor joists, header joist and subfloor. No attempts were made to repair the joists or fix the sill plate, joists, header joists and subfloor.

To help everyone better understand our plight, please look at my illustration. The picture above shows the exposed brick foundation stem wall where a sill and header joist (click on the photo to see more detail) should be in front of the plywood siding repair in the corner.  It also shows where Dad cut off the last of the bad wood on two of the floor joists.  These should extend to the wall and rest on the missing sill plate, supporting the floor and cabinets above (see my imaginary line edits, for example).

Actually, the “missing” sill plate is in the picture along with some of the “missing” pieces of the floor joists.  Did you notice the pile of wood shards piled up on the floor against the foundation?

Lesson #2: Good help and ideas are invaluable.

Great Minds Brainstorming

I was very thankful my parents and brother came down the first week I owned the house. Between my family and my boyfriend, we came up with many good solutions to every problem and made short work of the task at hand.

The corner of the house was sinking at the kitchen and we needed to replace the structure before starting on rebuilding the fancy new kitchen. In fact, my dad noted that the house in this particular corner was supported by nothing but air! We had a major problem facing us that had to be solved.

For example, all of the floor joists for the kitchen were crushed along the bottom edge as they pressed down into the sill plate.  We wanted to replace the damaged joists, but that proved to be too difficult a task. The solution turned out to be sistering of the joists. To sister a joist means adding a new piece of good structural lumber in parallel to the damaged wood and securing them together with adhesives and hardware. This process strengthens and repairs a damaged structure without having to fully remove it. This can save time and money. My budget liked this solution!

Now, our sistering joists solution was not going well. The weight of the house had crushed many of the original joists at the home’s sill plate beyond the rotted areas because they had to carry the load of the missing structure. We were having trouble getting new wood into place next to the compressed joists.  This remained a problem until each new joist was notched out about half an inch.  Each subsequent joist went in faster and faster after this discovery.  Every original 1950’s floor joist in the kitchen is now paired with a new 2008 joist.

Crushed Old Floor Joist

New Notched Sistered Floor Joist

Lesson #3: Muscle and prayer are good remodeling skills often used at the same time.

Shiny New Sistered Joists and Sill Plate…Still Going Strong 9 Years Later!

In the end, I remember being one of the two people with all my weight against a board keeping the plywood exterior in place as my dad hammered the new sill plate into place.  The first raindrops of Hurricane Gustav were falling on our backsides as we were praying the corner of the house would not fall down.  At least, I know I was using prayer on top of all my muscle and weight pushing against the house.  About an hour later we repeated the prayer and pushing process as Dad hammered in the shiny new sistered joists on top of the one hour old sill plate. He also added a shiny new header joist on top of the sill plate to bolster the corner so that a repeat of the problem in the corner would be less likely.

Then we continued building up the subfloor back to its former height. 1”x4” boards went back across the floor joists as a new subfloor.  I put down 6 mil moisture barrier between the smaller boards and a layer of plywood.  Then my dad and I installed a layer of  1/4″ HardieBacker cement board mortared to the plywood.  The new floor feels like it is on a slab.  And that was before I installed the tile on top with a beautiful granite thresholds between the porcelain tile in the kitchen and the soon-to-be refinished hardwood floors throughout the rest of the house.

New 1″ x 4″ Subfloor

Vapor Barrier Between Subfloor and Plywood

Installing the HardieBacker on the Plywood

I would like to take a moment to pause.  The story in the last paragraph above took many days (and nights!) of hard manual labor.

Hard.

Manual.

Labor.

Mom took the last photo of me and my dad laying the HardieBacker at 3 am. Thank you Brian, Dad, Mom, Konrad and Tom.

Subfloor Problems Solved!

The end result was a perfectly level floor.

*Admittedly, this is my brother.  However, he has over a decade of experience under his belt and has been through all nine circles of hell with his now gorgeous 2009 craftsman home with only foundation walls, framing and hardwood floors from 1910.  If you are anywhere in Nebraska you are in luck!