Living in an Old House? Learn How to Fix Uneven Floor Areas

As much as you may love your older house, you may see and feel uneven floor areas—a common occurrence in homes built in the last century.

While it’s easy to view uneven floors in old house as quirks or part of the building’s charm, they can point to larger structural issues beneath the surface. That’s why identifying uneven floors and what causes them is essential for properly repairing and protecting your home.

In this article, we cover common sources of sagging and uneven floors, effective solutions, and how the local foundation repair experts at Ohio Basement Authority can help restore your home and peace of mind.

1. Failing Support Beams or Jacks

Whether your older home has a basement or crawl space, it likely has support beams or jack posts extending from the floor to the ceiling. One way they test the sturdiness of the beams is to gently press into the wood with a pencil or screwdriver. If the wood crumbles, softens, or molds around the tool, this may be one source of your uneven floor. Metal can also corrode, weaken, and fail to adequately reinforce the floor. Mold, mildew, and wood-eating pests may have threatened the integrity of your support beams, and it’s time for professional repair.

2. Rotting or Drooping Floor Joists

Floor joists should also appear properly installed, without any crumbling, bowing, mold, or improper cuts to fit wiring, ducts, or pipes. In a healthy floor joist, there should be no cuts or penetration near the middle. Any hole made in the joist should be no closer than two inches from the top or bottom of the joist. The wood in floor joists is just as susceptible as other areas of your home to mold and rot. The same test mentioned above can be used to see if the joist crumbles or reacts differently.

3. Excess Moisture

Inspectors also may spot puddles, leaking walls and cove joints, and even water droplets throughout your basement or crawl space. Excess water and humidity can have poor implications on the structural integrity of your older home. As water collects around the structural support beams and floor joists, it weakens the materials and can cause rot or mold. As these issues escalate, they will cause the floors in your home to bow, sag, and become unlevel near the area of the problematic supports.

4. Insect Damage

Insects and other pests are drawn to damp, dark areas like basements and crawl spaces. You may notice pests like roaches, rats, crickets, centipedes, earwigs, termites, and more.

Inspectors will also check to see if these pests are present in your basement or crawl space. These creatures indicate larger issues in your home, as mold and moisture make an inviting space for them. Inspectors will check for maze-like cutout patterns in your walls or wooden supports, or small termite tunnels built around and down from wood.

For older homes with crawl spaces, support jacks are typically a go-to that can lift your floor over time.

At Ohio Basement Authority, we use IntelliJack™ support jacks to stabilize and potentially lift your floor. These high-quality support jacks are manufactured with corrosion-resistant, galvanized steel that is resistant to future infiltration of moisture and pests. They work by bearing the weight of the home in areas where support is lacking.

IntelliJack™ support posts are also adjustable. If your home creaks, settles, or warps again, the support jacks can be re-adjusted to level your floor once more.

While support jacks can be adjusted with the ebb and flow of your home, it’s still vital to target the root cause of the warping in your home, which is likely excess moisture and exposure to the elements.

Installing wall vapor barriers and water management measures in your basement or fully encapsulating your crawl space can be the extra measure your home needs to avoid mold, condensation, and humidity attacking your home’s structure again.