If you’ve has some type of water damage or insect infestation, you may find that you have damaged subflooring in the home. Sub-flooring is just what the term sounds like: material underneath the surface you walk on. It may be concrete, plywood, or several other types of material. Unfortunately, even the most robust subfloor material can become cracked or mildewed. Water can become trapped between the floor and the subfloor or between the top surface and the subfloor. Those and many other types of problems will often require making repairs.
It’s usually expensive and never pleasant but, like dental work, putting it off generally leads to bigger problems before long. Depending on the extent of the problem, it may require anything from removing a few tiles to stripping the entire top floor surface off and beginning anew.
The need for repairs can be detected in several ways, again depending on the nature and extent of the problem. In some cases, it’s an area on the top floor with a visible gap, say in the bathroom where water will certainly leak down. In other cases, it may be just a musty odor from mildew that won’t go away no matter how well the floor is cleaned. Sometimes it appears as a dip or bowled area in a section of carpet, which becomes especially obvious when it’s walked on.
Once confirmed, tackle the problem as soon as possible.
How to go about that will vary with the type of top floor installed. Vinyl, for example, can very rarely be reused and will have to be replaced with new material. With care, some stone tiles can be removed without cracking, then reused. Wood is a borderline case. Laminates can sometimes be reused, but it’s usually not worth the extra effort required to remove them without damage. The carpet will often have to be replaced with a new carpet or another flooring material.
Remove any flooring in the damaged area. Then inspect the damaged sub-floor. The most typical problem is water that has rotted plywood. Though never easy, there are worse things to have to repair. Cut away the rotted plywood, removing an entire sheet if possible. If not, simply cut a large enough area around the damage to ensure that all the rot has been cleared out. Mildew is made of living organisms and they can spread. Termite or other insect-induced damage will require an exterminator. If not stopped, they’ll continue to do more damage.
There’s one potential upside to an incident of a damaged subfloor. It creates the opportunity to reevaluate the type of flooring desired. A plywood sub-floor covered with carpet can be re-fitted with finished concrete or a laminate, for example.
Even if the same type of sub-flooring and flooring is laid down as a replacement, it’s a chance to use improved materials for the repair project. Wood sub-floors are much better than their predecessors from 20-50 years ago, thanks to improved treatments that will reduce the odds of ever having to do the work again. Carpets today have better water-resistant chemicals embedded in the fibers than in decades past.
Ensure that the new sub-floor materials, whatever you use, are perfectly flat to support the new floor. They have to be sturdy enough to bear the pressure of intended traffic. Sub-floor repairs are not something anyone wants to have to do twice.