Are loose floorboards dangerous? And cost of replacement shower?

BettyBoop17

We live in a rented house. Since we moved in seven years ago, the floorboards in the upstairs bathroom have been loose. They are getting worse. We've told the landlord but so far he hasn't done anything....says he is looking for someone to repair them. But I'm worried the ceiling will fall down. Is this likely to happen?

Also, the electric shower has stopped working. Just will no longer switch on. I am prepared to pay for the replacement and installation myself. Reason being....the house was valued recently for rent of between £950-1200 a month. It's a huge house. We pay £700. So I don't want to ask too much of the landlord and risk him putting the rent up. Any ideas xx?

Ruski

Ceiling are not connected (directly) to floorboards - your ceilings are fine.
Sparky will replace a shower for between 100 and 200 notes, not including shower unit itself, unless other underlying issues.

HTH

Russ

FreeBear

Ruski wrote: »

Sparky will replace a shower for between 100 and 200 notes, not including shower unit itself, unless other underlying issues.

And if he has to lift the carpet/lino, he should be able to screw the loose boards down if plied with coffee (as long as they aren't rotten).

BettyBoop17

Thankyou both, 1-200 isn't bad as I thought it would run to £4-500. The floorboards may be rotten as we had a leak last year (leaking toilet). I've peeled back a bit of the Lino and they are dry and look okay but I can't tell without taking all the lino up. My uncle offered to do the floorboards but then said there may be water pipes underneath so would be best left to a professional. I can wait for the landlord to sort it but is it safe? The floorboards have been loose for 7 years but do seem to be getting worse. I've been taking baths since the shower broke but I'm scared as I keep worrying the bath will fall through. Would that be likely to happen? Thanks again

London50

The floorboards are nailed/screwed to timber joists so unless the joists have totally rotted through around the bath {this I very much doubt or it would have happened by now} you will have no worries of the bath falling through your ceiling.
Once the floorboards are repaired with either longer screws/nails or fixed in to the joists in a new position all will be sorted.
Just relax and do not worry you are safe :0)

BettyBoop17

Thankyou

Mr.Generous

The floorboard probably want extra supports (called noggins) fitting, just pieces of timber supporting them. The usual culprit is the plumber who fitted the central heating. They make all sorts of cut outs in joists to fit all the pipes and just refit floorboards with little support.

A note of caution! The heating pipes have to cross joists somewhere, where they do the floor boards often have an obvious nail hole that lines up with other nail holes - so is obviously in line with the joist run, but mysteriously has no nails.

The reason is the nail would go into a heating pipe. Not a massive disaster on a renovation project empty property when you do the plumbing and can easily fix it. But quite upsetting on a Sunday at 4pm when you are trying to fix it in your own home. Heating leaks tend to go on for quite some time even after the water is turned off and leave you without working heating funnily enough.

The best way to fix them is to take up the vinyl, then whichever boards are loose lift them and see what's under them, how best to secure them and where extra supports (noggins mentioned earlier) can be added. We always screw down floor boards rather than nail, much easier to get them up again if required. We have to fix loose floors on every renovation, and it is always the heating pipes run, the sparky's and the bathroom fitters tend to have done a pretty decent job on the re fixing of the floors in my experience, sorry heating guys, stop getting the apprentice to "bung the floorboard back".

Do not be tempted to just bang nails or screws into a loose floor unless you are .... A) a gambler and felling lucky ... Me trying to get home early and then obviously hitting a pipe and making myself late ... C) Happy to sort out the leak / shorted electrical problem if you hit a wire.