Buckled floorboards?

~Chameleon~

Over the last few months I've noticed "ridges" appearing under the carpet in one of the ground floor rooms (the only one that has proper floorboards, the rest is concrete flooring) and it appears to be getting worse. The ridges seem to occur along the lengths of the floorboard joints and you can clearly feel it underfoot.

I've just pulled a corner of the carpet back to have a look and the boards are noticably dipped in the middle and feel quite spongy underfoot if that makes sense.

Anyone any ideas what could be causing it? I wanted to lay laminate flooring in this room but not sure I can now with the floor becoming so uneven

ormus

the planks are warping. caused by heat/cold/moisture/drying out.
maybe possible to screw the planks down. that sometimes works.

if you need a level floor prior to laminating, then relaying the floor with MDF flooring boards or plywood is prob the best way. these dont warp.
gives you a nice level floor to start with.

~Chameleon~

It's just a mystery as to why they're doing it now when the house is around 100yr old and it's not something I noticed when we moved in here, just over the last few months.

It couldn't be caused by damp could it? The walls are currently being treated for damp atm as there was in excess of 50% moisture in them and plaster was crumbling so it's all having to come off and be re-plastered.

I think I need to get to the bottom of what's causing it before going to the expense of laying laminate if it could cause problems with that too.

ormus

maybe a good idea to uplift a few boards to investigate what is happening.
mdf/ply and laminate is fairly inert stuff, and is not really affected by the problems that affects real solid wood.

maninthestreet

Do you have central heating pipes running under the floor boards?

~Chameleon~

maninthestreet wrote: »

Do you have central heating pipes running under the floor boards?

No, they run around the walls.

savemoney

I think a couple of joists in our dining room are rotten and the previous owner masked them with laminate flooring. The joists closest to the chimney seem to be the worse. One side of the chimney the floor isnt even. the other side unsure as we got the pc desk on top but every time someone walks close to desk and I am sat in chair you can feel the floor move

Only sure way of finding out is taking laminate up. I knwo when we first moved in as kitchen is connect to the dining room we use to get quite a few woodlice and slugs in. We sorted that out by filling in holes under the kitchen cabinets where you could see snail trails coming from, dont get this problem now, but I am worried one day the joist will go