Laser levels and line levels

[Gordon Maney]

I have a house that is about 100 years old. I am considering the possibility of doing some major leveling work on some upstairs floors. This would involve removing floor boards, shimming on joists, and then putting down flooring again.

In 1994 I put a new basement under the house, so it is will no longer sette. The main offender is a hallway, but as you can guess, differences in level from this hallway to individual rooms may result. I ponder just how to handle that.

In the past I would use string and line levels to do this work. The advent of the laser seems to offer new possibilities.

There are a lot of different kinds of lasers. Is there one that would be well suited to this work, leveling at floor level?

[Ron in Indiana]

Gordon I have not had experience with these new pocket lasers since I use a Laser Alignment unit for all my work. This is a large rotating unit with a separate eye to pickup the signal. I'm sure you can use one of these smaller units for what you propose.

My question is , would it be easier/better to sister new joist to the existing? I don't know how much sag you are looking at but with the age of the house it may be better with working in new floor joist. Houses this age were not built with exact same dimmension lumber or members sized for loads like we can do today there in causing sagging floors.

I recently rebuilt a house for my kids and we used this method to shore up the sagging floors in the kitchen and den. There was considerable bounce and sag so with jacking up the exnisting framing and installing the new joist it eliminated the problems plus not having to remove the pine T&G flooring.

If you can get a reference point either from the top of the floor or from under it in the basement you will find just how much deflection you are dealing with. I'm sure you can rent a commercial laser from Home Depot or any good rental yard that will perform these tasks with greater ease and accuracy than perhaps a small pocket laser.

It's not a east job to do in returning floors to a level plane and there will always be an amount of compromise along the way. Good luck and Happy Holidays.

[Gordon Maney]

A concern I have with respect to this idea is that the hallway drops too much to allow jacking it to where it should be to make the tops of the joists level. The house settled into its shape during a 90 year period. The mover indicated it is a compromise between putting it back where it belongs, and also not springing it so much that you break a lot of plaster, sheetrock, and windows in the process.

I had done some work in the house, including the replacement of all of the windows, before the basement replacement. All that work was done level to the world.

Also, this is the second floor I describe. That would greatly complicate working from below. Possible, yes, but really difficult, I think.

As far as sizing of framing members, the phrase, they don't build them like they used to, brings to mind occasionally that we are fortunate that they don't build them like they used to....

[Ron in Indiana]

I would agree on all points especially with your mover and your last comment . I find most people go at repairing an older house backwards as in doing the cosmetic things first then find that they ruin some of that work in the process of replacing foundations. It will most likely do more damage to set things back to plumb and level than to stay with the "settled in " state. I would proceed with taking up the floor then and deal with what you find . I would still look at placing new members against the old rather than shimming the existing as most times it will save time and aggrevation. Did you ever invest in a framing gun? This would be a good place to use one. You may not even need place the same size joist to level up with, I would use at least a 2x6 and plenty of spikes to fasten to the existing joist for leveling purposes.

[Gordon Maney]

When I first started working on this house I did not imagine replacing the basement, partly because I suppose I did not think I could afford it. Doing it over again, I should have replaced the basement first. Hopefully I will never have a job like this house again....

[MoparNorm]

Hi Gordon,

Just tuned in here, before I offer advice, I need some info to make an informed opinion.
How much does the hallway sag?
Have you already re-installed the home onto the new foundation?
(I see 1994, but I am not sure what relation the "mover" is playing in all this)
What is the size of the sagging second floor, area wise?
Is there "flex" or just sagging?
Are there "bearing walls" underneath the area in question?
MN

[Gordon Maney]

A hallway, by eye, drops about 2 inches in 12 feet. You can feel it when you walk down the slope. I can get under the place and jack downstairs, and put a post there, but I will break a lot of relatively new sheetrock and probably have to re-install some doors, because they would go out of square. So, I think I would rather not do the jacking. It is sag, not flex.

The house was set on the new basement in 1994.

[MoparNorm]

OK,

I don't know your buget, but there are self leveling gyp-cretes, and cell-crete products, such as Ardex (very expensive) to gyp-crete, more affordable. They are basically self leveling grouts, that are placed very wet to flow level. They are specially formulated to add strength, quietness and will not crack at thicknesses as thin as 1/8" to 2".
What would need to be done would be to take up and save the wood floor, apply floor sheathing, place the underlayment and then renail the wood floor over everything. Without seeing it (photos?) it is hard to know if you have adjacent rooms and doorways that would make this a problem. It would work well for a hallway only (although I have leveled 9,000 sq. ft. in this manner) but would be costly to extend into other areas.
A post would not be desireable if it impacts the area below, but depending upon the span and proximity of bearing walls below you could install a flush beam in the floor joist cavity to raise that portion. Unfortunately you have already performed the finish drywall and door work out of sequence, so that the underlayment may be the best alternative, unless the area that needs raising includes going into adjacent rooms, that would make it quite a large project to remove all the flooring to install the underlayment. A less desirable method, but the easiest is to place the Ardex over the existing wood floor in one operation and cover the floor with carpet.
MN

[Gordon Maney]

One problem with the whole situation is that there are rooms along this hallway. They really have no apparent problem, so there would be transitions between the hall and some of these rooms.

I started working on the house in 1978, making a lot of improvements before the replacement of the basement. That is why it becomes so complicated.

[fuzzyalex]

My two cents worth...
I agree with MoparNorm, self leveling grout would be the easiest and least time consuming way to level a floor. I have been assisting a lady remodel her house for the past year and one of my projects was to expand a small mud room by 2' to make it into a laundry room. I put in the new part of the floor level and found out that the old part sloped almost 2" in 9 feet (about five feet wide). I used five bags of self leveling grout at $25.00 a pop and it worked out real nice and simple, and was level with only a hand trowel to finish and feather it out. I think it would be very sound over a wood sub-floor, but I would make sure the existing floor joists/headers will support the extra weight until it sets! ( it might be worth it to install a few extra joists if you are thinking of saving the old subfloor planks anyway). Going this way you might be able to fudge a little and feather the leveling compound down towards the doors as long as they open into the rooms...

[MoparNorm]

But of course!

Originally posted by Gordon Maney

I started working on the house in 1978, making a lot of improvements before the replacement of the basement. That is why it becomes so complicated.

If it wasn't complicated, everyone would be doing it and I'd be out of a job...ha!ha!
Keep me posted, in case I can help in any way from long distance.
MN

[Gordon Maney]

I will, and thank you.

That is a phrase I have used on other people....

....if it was easy, anybody could do it.

I bought my first Power Wagon from an old man who ran a field tiling business. He was explaining this complex process that was involved in running the tiler and how to maintain the right slope and depth when running across uneven terrain.

I told him I thought it sounded complicted, hard to do.

"Not if you know how to do it," he said.

[Sickcall]

There are many laser levels on the market for a lot less than they used to cost a few years ago. They need to be properly leveled in order to read correctly. The least expensive and most accurate level is still a piece of clear plastic hose with water in it. The water at each end will always be at the same height. Put a little color in it to see it better.