Spent all Saturday ripping out a shiplap wall I just put up because I forgot to check for level

I was 6 feet into installing it in my Denver basement when I realized the floor slopes a full 2 inches across the room, so I had to tear it all down and start over with shims which added 3 more hours to the job, has anyone else dealt with a wonky floor that messed up your whole plan?

2 comments

2 Comments

sean_park828d ago

Slammed my head into this exact thing last year when I was putting in some floating shelves in my old house. Walls looked straight but the floor was like a roller coaster, ended up with one shelf gap so wide on the bottom you could fit a whole finger in there. Had to pull everything down, grind down the studs in a couple spots, and shim the rest like a madman for like 4 hours. My buddy walked in and asked if I was building a crooked staircase, real funny guy. Sometimes I swear these old houses were built by a drunk guy with a level that was just for decoration.

olivers2828d ago

That floor pitch is telling you something about the foundation or the joists nobody wants to talk about. Denver basements especially, with the clay soil that swells when wet, can have slab settlement or frost heave that creates a slow, invisible tilt over years. Instead of just shimming the wall, you might want to check if the floor is actually moving seasonally and just temp-fixing it will bite you later. I had a buddy in Arvada who shimmed everything perfectly, then next spring the floor shifted back and cracked his tile because the soil dried out and the slab dropped again. Putting a slightly adjustable footer or a self-leveling compound base under that wall could save you a redo next year. Your 3 extra hours now vs a full blown foundation repair later is an easy choice.