Fix bouncy floors by adding bridging, adding a layer of plywood or adding a wall or beam. We'll show you three ways to stiffen up your bouncy floor—by adding bridging, installing plywood along the joists and adding a wall or beam under the floor. Any one of the three can solve your problem, depending on your situation.
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 laminate or wood floor will 'bounce' when there is a substantial gap between the underside of the wood/laminate plank and the sub-floor. The feeling of bounce is caused by the flooring moving downward when weight is applied (stepped on).
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.
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.
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.
Three common issues could be causing your bouncy floors
There are a few reasons a home's floor can become bouncy, according to the home repair site Low Country Foundation Repair: poor structural design, foundation settlement, or moisture in a crawl space.
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.
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.
Signs of a Significant Problem
Floors that sag 2 inches or more in 20 feet, though, are a cause for concern. Additional indicators of a significant problem include: Foundation cracks. Differential settlement of foundation or slab.
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.
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.
Floor deflection is common in older homes because the floor joists often are smaller or are spaced farther apart than the joists in modern homes. Of course, new homes also can have bouncy floors if the joists are approaching the maximum spanning distance for the building loads they are supporting.
If no gap was included, then there's nowhere for any expansion in the boards to go but up, causing the bouncing sensation when you walk on the floor. The good news is that this issue can be fixed by trimming away a narrow strip of laminate at the very edges of the floor to create an expansion gap.
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.
If you have sinking and uneven floors, your floor support may be inadequate. Here are some of the more common causes of crawl space and foundation issues that can lead to sagging, sloping, or uneven floors: Water damage. Crawl space moisture.
Subfloor Damage
If your foundation has settled since the house was built, your subfloor may have also settled, creating a dip between the boards on top and the subfloor boards beneath. This can cause low spots to form, which can also be perceived as soft spots. You'll need a professional to repair the plywood floors.
1. Using Beams or Walls as Support for Floor Joists. Using beams or walls as a support to your floor joists is an excellent way to strengthen them. This option opts for cases where space is not limited and adding columns does not reduce the effectiveness of the design.
Standard homeowners insurance policies typically do not include coverage for valuable jewelry, artwork, other collectibles, identity theft protection, or damage caused by an earthquake or a flood.
Home and condo insurance typically covers floors and carpet if the damage was caused by a covered peril.
The most common cause of wet rot in ground floor timbers and cellars is rising damp, penetrating damp and poor sub-floor or cellar ventilation (fig 3 & 4). In the past, the beams supporting the floors (floor joists) and the associated timber wall plates and lintels were all built into, or resting on naked masonry.