However, if you see your floors sagging more than this or forming new cracks you should call us to assess the problem and offer a suitable solution. Sagging floors are not only deformed and unappealing but they can be dangerous. They can collapse and cause injuries if they're not fixed quickly.
Sagging floors are a sign of serious damage to the joists beneath your home and the structure of your home overall. Left untended, this can lead to injury, property loss, and disaster. Worse, insurance companies often will not pay for such losses or repairs if you ignored the issue once the early signs became visible.
What Happens if You Don't Fix Sagging Floors? If you ignore sagging floors, it can lead to consequences such as property damage that your insurance company may not cover. It can also lead to injury when someone trips or falls on uneven floors, or even property loss if the damage is great enough.
While sagging floors are unsightly, they can be dangerous as well. A sagging floor means that it has lost support, and it may eventually collapse into lower levels of the home. The overall structure of your home could be at risk, therefore making repairs a priority is imperative.
In layman's terms, this means typical 2-by-10 floor joists, spanning 16 feet, can be expected to sag about one-eighth to one-quarter of an inch. Not much; however, as the span increases, so does the amount of deflection. In any case, the floor system can be repaired.
Does home insurance cover foundation movement or sagging floors? Foundation damage caused by shifting or settling earth or sagging floors caused by rotting floor joists are typically not covered by homeowners insurance. If the damage is caused by flooding or an earthquake, you'll typically require separate coverage.
Owners of old homes might learn to experience springy or slanting floors as part of the charm, but they are signs of structural damage. As a home buyer, look at whether the floors pitch at all or take a piece of string to test the floor's deflection.
You will notice the floors sloping to one side, or sagging in the center. The floor may feel oddly bouncy or soft, or have high and low places. These are all signs of a deteriorating floor structure. But even if your main beam falls down, it won't immediately take out the entire floor.
Safety factor is a measurement with which your floor was designed to support loads without collapsing. Most homes have a safety factor of 40 PSF (pounds per square foot).
The typical costs for repairing sagging floors start at $1000 and can go up to $10,000, with the average rate being around $300 per square foot.
Sometimes, the signs of sagging or sloping floors in your home are as easy to spot as they sound. Your floors may visually appear slanted. You may even notice objects roll when dropped on the floor. This occurs because the foundation has improperly settled, creating the sloping.
Sagging or bouncy floors problems are often caused by a weak floor joist that has sagged under the load of people walking on the floor above. If the issue is caused by just one or two joists, you can probably handle it yourself by attaching a “sister joist” to the original ones.
Uneven floors in a house are usually a sign of a foundation problem, but not always.
Excessive Weight on a Floor
For example, a floor of an office building is generally designed to hold a lot more weight than a floor in a residential home. However, if load-bearing supports are not installed properly, this can cause a floor to collapse.
Uneven floors are responsible for countless injury-causing falls each year. Whether it's a case of warped hardwood or bunched up carpeting, an uneven floor surface can spell danger for just about any unsuspecting person nearby.
The solution to sagging floors, or the damaged sills and joist ends that contribute to them, often involves jacking. A common scenario is to install temporary jack posts and support beams, then permanent posts and beams over new footings.
A common sign of compromised joists is uneven floors. But these could be the result of flooring or subflooring defects. “Bouncy” floors are a very common sign of rotten floor joists. A musty or damp smell in certain rooms of your house is a clue to the presence of mold or decay.
Bowing or uneven floors that are separated from the wall can be a sign that a home is likely to collapse. Look for sunken, heaved, or sloped areas on floors inside the building. They may also feel bouncy. Don't forget to check if the wall moldings are out-of-place, too.
In other situations, like a recent incident that occurred in Dallas, a floor collapse can be caused by too many people inhabiting an apartment. In this case, far too many people attended a party and were jumping up and down and caused the collapse.
Keep an eye out for: Visible cracks in the chimney or the house's exterior. Windows and doors that stick, don't open or close smoothly, or won't lock. Doors that won't stay closed.
Solid hardwood flooring has been known to last up to 100 years, while the engineered version has a life of almost 50 years. Both options can be refinished throughout their lives, meaning your century-old floors can still look like new with proper care and maintenance.
Floors begin to slope for several reasons. Most commonly, floor sloping occurs as a result of natural forces shifting the home over time, water damage, windows losing structural integrity, or faulty construction of a home's original foundation.
If the sub floor is not strong enough to span the distance between the floor joist, trusses or supporting beams, then sponginess may occur. If the sub floor is 1/2 inch thick and it should have been 5/8 or 3/4 of an inch thick, then you may get sponginess or sagging.