Sloping floors in Tenement flat

weeg

Eldi_Dos said:

TELLIT01 said:

Thanks for that weeg.  Levelling the floor, as others have said, is a major task however it is done, and will be extremely disruptive and probably extremely expensive.

If it is the wallplates that are causing the problem it will not necessarily be massively expensive as that would be the only material that needs replaced.

In standard tenement construction the joists are built into the walls. I don't think I've ever seen a wall plate in one. Not saying they never occur, but it's certainly not common, at least in the central belt.

Eldi_Dos

They are quite common in Victorian houses and upper flats here.

One common place for them to fail is where there was originally a range sited by the side of a chimney breast.
A lot of these ranges were taken out in the 1920's when grants became available for installing inside toilets, it became common here to build a kitchen with a toilet at the end of it. I believe the grants became available after a outbreak of Cholera in the Southside in the 1920's.

When I had a problem with ' spongy' floor in the corner of the back living room, the joiner came in had a sniff looked at the wall which had evidence of pipework showing where plastering had been done and he diagnosed the problem before lifting the floor boards, It was something he had come across before in houses and flats of that vintage in Fife.Thankfully it was not too difficult or expensive to replace as it was limited to the area where the range had stood.

MissCeltic

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81767265#Comment_81767265

I have just come back to this thread and seen this. My team are in some state but that is another matter😂

I still don’t know what to do with these floors somebody suggested lifting the laminate and putting leveller done before replacing the flooring. When I moved it there was carpet and I replaced with laminate so maybe going back to carpet might be best. I am also stressing in case it’s structural/foundation but then I have been here for over a decade.

This is doing nothing for my anxiety.

WIAWSNB

How bad - out of level - is it? Do you have any actual measurements you can give?

Are they slopes from one room side to another, or dips in the middle?

Are the floors springy?

Most likely it won't be a structural concern, but just something folk either accept as a typical quirk of these types and age of properties, or have sorted as you are considering.

How many rooms are affected, that you'd want sorting?

And why wasn't it noticeable with carpet? Is it that the laminate has movement in it as you walk over it?

(On a connected issue, is it ok to have laminate ate/hard floors in your building? They can be noisy for the flat below.)

From what you indicate - eg that it wasn't really an issue with carpet - I'm guessing it isn't a particularly severe example. So very possibly the addition of a tough levelling compound - probably resin-based - would do the job. If so, not a biggie, and very little disruption.

Get two or three flooring specialists in to assess and quote?

If you go ahead, consider a really good underlay to reduce sound transmission. You can ask them about that too.

jennifernil

Sloping floors in the old tenements seems quite common. About 12 years back we went with our daughter to look at a ground floor tenement flat with an undeveloped cellar below, the floor in the lounge sloped so much that it made be feel very strange!

In the 60s my BIL and family rented a 2nd floor tenement flat in the West End of Glasgow, the floors in it also sloped badly so he decided to level up the lounge floor using shims on the joists. Worst part of it was removing all the ash that had been used as sound deadening between the floors, very messy!