03 October 2005

The State of the Floor

We've spent the last several weeks on demolition. We've ripped out all of the shag carpet (which we're going to recycle) and padding and nails/staples. Underneath most of the carpet, we found oak, tongue-and-groove flooring. The floor in Bedroom #1 looks the best of all the rooms in the house. It's only major problem is that somebody painted the room without using a drop cloth, so there are big white splotches all over the floor. Will sanding the floor to refinish it get them out?


In Bedroom #2, there was vinyl tile over a sheet of masonite over about half of the floor. This should have protected the floor underneath, but they used so many nails that it just left it full of holes. On the other half of the floor, they glued down felt tiles. We pulled them up, but they've left a nasty residue all over, a mixture of foam and glue. Does anyone know how we can get it off the wood?
Now we get to the bad part. The floors in Bedroom #3 , the hallway and the living room were all extensively damaged. It looks like there is water damage from something that would have soaked in from above, like a carpet shampooer being used on thick carpet and there are also stains from an animal. There is definitely still odor from the later.
So, needless to say, we're ripping out all of the damaged floor. The subfloor underneath is 1x6's and they're kind of a whitish color. At first, we were afraid that the color meant that there was a fungus growing all over them, but then we realized that they were used as formwork for concrete and the white is just concrete residue. Good news there, but of course there is still some water staining and the animal smell to get rid of. Any help there?


Here is some termite evidence as well. The house was tented in escrow so they should be all gone now.

And finally, Tomo, Shana and Zelda came over and kindly brought us lunch on Sunday:



Up next: Electrical work starts Tuesday!! Renee and Kira are visiting!! and we're going to put out the word for a work-weekend soon - anybody up for Oct. 15th/16h?

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

ummmmm...., "ew". that floor is gross!

10/04/2005 2:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Water staining will not effect the subfloor. But the staining is indicative of a greater problem: the water in that location in the first place - make sure that you dont have leaky plumbing in the walls, adjacent room, roof, etc.

Animal odor may be coming from the crawl space - it seams likely there is a crawl space as there is a wood subfloor.

Except for moisture warped finish flooring, the other issues should be able to be sanded out, but you'll have to get the adhesive off first. I'd try goof-off or something similar, but you'll probably have to air out the place for awhile afterwards.

10/25/2005 6:20 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home