Hi.

My father in law just started to rent a space in an antique co-op. The place is a hundred+ year old house. The floor just by his space is very, very bouncy.

I went into the basement and looked up. The subfloor seems like plywood. In spots there is something that looks like liquid nails. With a flashlight I didn't see any gaps between the subfloor and joists. When my wife bounced in that spot the noise was clear but I didn't *see* any evidence of the bounce.

After doing a little research via Google, if it were my own house I'd probably go through the effort of adding more joists with glue and lag bolts. But I'm not sure what to do here. Assuming that the owners let me, I'm thinking about using steel bridging like these.

I'm hoping that, from this forum, I'll get suggestions for different (better) ideas or validation that the steel bridging is indeed the way to go.

To be clear, I don't intend to 'fix' the whole place, but just to stabilize the the area by his booth. He's already lost items to breakage, and things are constantly falling from the bouncing.

Thanks for any input!!!!!

Paul

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Paulb104,

first.. it ain't your building.

second... you don't have rights to work on common areas.

third... it's probably a code and insurance issue as well, don't touch it.

your legitimate options are to talk to the landlord about the sponginess, or to talk to the building inspector.

it's probably a good idea to sister up those joists with PL adhesive and construction screws, using sister boards long enough to go above one support beam or pocket to another. but unless you want total liability falling on you for any future issue in that building whatsoever, don't do it. get the landlord to do it.

the rule is "last one touching it gets all the blame."

Paul, what provisions are contained in the lease forrenovations and the landlord's obligation to deal with something that might be a safety issue (assuming that the bouncy floors are unsafe)?

Also check the lease to see if there are any provisions covering damage to your father's property as a result of the bouncy floor.

Third, was your father required to carry any insurance for his space, and if not, does the landlord's insurance cover damage to your father's property? If it doesn't, has your father spoken with his homeowners' agent regarding carrying tenant's coverage for his space?

While I appreciate all your concern, I'd rather have a discussion on how to fix a bouncy floor and NOT what is legally appropriate or what a building inspector might or might not say.

It's all tied together Paul. We could say to add a central beam supported by posts going to new footers. Or sister all joists with larger dimension lumber. Or add solid blocking between all joists set 8' OC. All would help to a degree. Adding new beams and posts would almost certainly solve the bounce problem. However, it would be poor advice if anybody here ignored some the basic facts that you give in your post. Most important is the fact that your F-I-L is renting the space.

Giving you all kinds methods to fix the floor is bad advice considering that whatever you do could be removed by the landlord if he wishes.

Your question is "What to do about the bouncy floors?" The answer: Go to the landlord and have him find a solution. If that solution is to have your F-I-L do the entire repair, then start looking into whatever methods we can recommend. Until then, it's a waste of time.

Probably not what you want to hear but better to get some accurate and factual information here than some total line of BS.