Floor Repairs

If you have a really good memory you will remember that the original wall between the old lounge and the conservatory was completely rebuilt. To facilitate this, the floor was cut back to the preceding joist, to give access to the foundations from inside the house (easier than lifting the solid conservatory floor).

When the builders finished, they put in a new joist, but left the floor open. We added some temporary boards to cover the hole. Today was the day this floor was repaired properly. This picture shows the gap, and the new joist, spaced out from the previous one with some horizontal noggins. The first job was to cut back the raggedy edged floorboards flush with the old joist, shown partly completed in this picture :

Looking the other way :

The joists are supported on low sections of brickwork which go down to the foundation slab.

Normally I wouldn't even consider short floorboards just spanning one joist pair. Part of the strength of a wooden floor is derived from the fact that the board stretches a long way beyond where you are actually standing, with the upward pull of the extended board contributing to the support of the downward force of your weight. Ideally I would have cut it back one or two more joists, probably in an alternating pattern. However, this was made difficult by the different widths of the original floorboards, and my new ones.

In my further defence, the gap I am trying to fill is narrower than a standard joist span, and experimentation showed that a single span board did not flex too much. In fact, because this is close to the wall, you end up with your feet placed over the joist anyway.

After completing cutting back the existing board edges, I installed a couple of wall bolts, spacers and DPC to anchor the last joist to the wall :

I thought this necessary because the support for the joist at this end wasn't great. It sits right on the end of the support wall, and is packed up with loose bits of slate. Much more secure now.

Next step was to fix a strip along the old joist to support the new boards and to extend the new joist up to the side wall, as the builders had cut it a bit short to support the final floorboard :

Then it was just a case of cutting the short boards, slotting them together and nailing them down :

Note the black strip of PVC sticking up where the boards meet the wall. In my opinion the builders put the DPC in the wall too high up. Maybe they were constrained by the conservatory floor level. To protect the edge of the boards from damp ingress I installed A strip of DPC along the top of the new joist, folded up against the wall. This tucks up behind the skirting and effectively meets up with the wall DPC and extends it back below floor level.

This last picture shows that I managed to get one strip of skirting installed as well today.

I should also add, in case you are wondering, that, for some reason, the builders kept the wall running across the doorway, but set it's height too high. This means it is not easy for me to extend the floor right up to the door. In fact there is going to have to be a low step. That's for another day....