julia_lee•7d agoMost Upvoted

Just had a nightmare install in a 1970s split-level that changed my prep work forever

I was in this house in Akron last month, laying carpet in the sunken living room. The old pad was totally glued down, so I started scraping. My scraper hit something solid, and I found a whole section of the subfloor was actually 1/4 inch plywood just nailed over the original boards. The homeowner had no idea. I had to stop, go get a sheet of 3/4 inch OSB, and spend two extra hours fixing it before I could even think about tack strips. Now I sound like a broken record, but I tap and probe every single square foot of subfloor before I even unroll the new pad. Anyone else gotten burned by a hidden subfloor surprise like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

piper_burns6d ago

Oh man, that 1/4 inch plywood find is brutal. I feel your pain. I learned my lesson on a job where the floor felt fine until I pulled up the old vinyl. Found a two-foot square patch of just... nothing. It was particle board that had completely turned to dust from a slow leak. The joist was right there underneath. Had to sister in new blocking and put down a whole new sheet of subfloor. Now my moisture meter and a good hammer for sounding things out are the first tools out of my truck. That extra half-hour of checking saves a whole day of headache.

mark3616d ago

Ugh, that's just how it goes with old houses. It feels like every repair is just a cover-up for the last guy's shortcut.