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Unlevel floors in new home

7K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  sbland 
#1 ·
I have never posted in a chatroom before but am trying to find some answers to a building problem.

My family just moved in to a beautiful new home with wonderful tile work, wood floors, nice trim work, etc. The problem is that the floors in almost every room are uneven and I feel off balance and almost disoriented when I walk around the house.

Our first contractor was horrible and basically just disappeared. The second didn't follow up completely to the first and assumed that everything was level (I think). Though I walked through many times I didn't realize the problem until the carpet was in, and all of the finish work had been done. There is a suggestion that the problem is with the joists but I don't know anything really about the construction process and so don't know. What appears to be happening is that the house is sagging towards a middle point with other additional dips and peaks in different rooms.

I am wondering what our options are now at this point. I'm assuming that if you were to somehow "lift" the joists, that the tile would crack and break, that the beautiful trim and drywall would crack, the cupboards would be damaged, etc.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as this has put an incredible strain on our family. Basically the dream home gone bad scenario. I just need a starting point to see what the available options might be if any.

Thank you,

Sue
 
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#4 ·
Thank you for both of your responses. Unbelievably one of the two supporting posts for the house was never put in so the house has been basically bending in to the hole where the post was supposed to be.

The house has been jacked up just under an inch at this point and though there has been some damage it is not too bad. I think the floor may be buckling in some places because of it and we will have to rip the carpet up eventually & deal with that also.

The floors are much more level but this house will never be what it could have been with a good contractor who knew what he was doing to begin with. We have slope in other places because something to do with the "sill plate" was not done either. It is much better and I am happy for that and need to just accept the rest of the slope that we have I'm afraid. It has been a hard lesson to learn that the most important person on a building project is the person who does your foundation and we chose very, very badly.

Susan
 
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