Old House, loose floorboard and crack in ceiling below

wookie008

Hello,

We've just moved into a lovely 1850s house, wooden beams the lot which has always been our dream. Now before I go into our problem I should say I am an incessant worrier.

So as with what seems all old houses the floors are not very level. There's a particular area upstairs where there is a real dip and it's almost like a trampoline. Now the worry for me is that a crack seems to have developed on the ceiling below pretty much below this dip. So what I'm thinking is because of the give, when we've been stepping on it it's been putting pressure on the ceiling below and the plaster has cracked. The crack basically runs across the living room so is approx 10 feet long, it's not wide, almost like someone has drawn a pencil along it.

I'm just worried that one day we're going to go through the ceiling. What doesn't help is the wife bought some pretty hefty wardrobes from Oak Furniture Land which are pretty close to it, so the other concern is could they be exerting too much pressure and could be the cause of the crack?

Anyway I'm hoping someone could shed some light on this and let me know if this is a common thing or something I should be worried about?

Thanks

dj1471

I was hoping you'd get some replies to this since I have the same problem. It's not unusual for old houses to have uneven floors but being bouncy can't be good!

It could be that the joists are rotten, have suffered from woodworm or similar or have been weakened by later works (e.g. some idiot has run water pipes through them). I think the sensible thing to do is get the joists checked by a professional, but I'm not sure which trade would do this.

The ceiling doesn't sound like much to be worried about, but I'd keep an eye on it. It could be a lath and plaster ceiling which will make an incredible mess if some does fall. It's common to board over them if they're not looking too healthy.

Norman_Castle

There's a particular area upstairs where there is a real dip and it's almost like a trampoline.

The floor joist may have been levelled by putting pieces of slate under the ends. If these have moved that joist may be being supported by the floorboards.

Any

Hi, I wasn't going to postas our case was bad, but I will now.
We also live in an old house (stone cottage). We just had our whole floor replaced-as in rip it all out and put everything new in.
We had a leak from bathroom and taking the ceiling down revealed that our floor joists were weakend by wood worm (obviously some time ago) and the water soaked them and they were unsafe. We could have just replaced the joists, but as we were planning new floor layout (involving moving the stairs and bathroom) in future, we just had that part of the house fully replaced immediately instead.
Bounce is not good.
But as you are a worrier, how much of an exaggeration is the use of a "trampoline"?
Our case was extreme, but in such an old houses these things can happen.
In our house that part of the house was untouched since built (other parts had extension and therefore looked at stc) and obviously there was a damage. But the original joists were massive I have to say! If they weren't exposed to the worm and then water logged for what seemed to have been some time, I think they would be the only thing standing after a fire, I am sure!!
I would call a builder/joiner (that is who we called). Structural building specialists to get an opinion.

wookie008

Norman_Castle wrote: »

The floor joist may have been levelled by putting pieces of slate under the ends. If these have moved that joist may be being supported by the floorboards.

how serious would this be? I'm really hoping this isn't something that will need immediate looking into to be honest!

Grenage

I'd take the upstairs floor up and have a look; all the guesswork in the world will get you nowhere.

Norman_Castle

tshirttan408 wrote: »

how serious would this be? I'm really hoping this isn't something that will need immediate looking into to be honest!

The end of the joist will move down until it rest on whatever the slate was on, normally brickwork. If this is the problem the floor won't collapse but it will move and be uneven.
Personally I would look into it as collapsing floors are never fun and finding out what the problem is should be quite simple. Lift a few floorboards and look. If the joist isn't supported properly it should be relatively simple and cheap to remedy but if the joists are damaged and need replacing this is much more involved and needs doing before decorating or carpeting is started in either of the rooms.