Doing my honeydo project of remodleing a bath from a boring showertub fiberglass monolith, to a new wainscotting, clawfoot, etc. The old bath was out of level by 1/2 inch in 6 feet. I took my level to the various other parts of the house and confimed similar readings (some leaning to the west, some to the east) depending on which side of the central crawlspace beam the rooom was one. Now I dont want to install further fixtures, or wainscotting untill I relevel but is this too small to worry about? If I finish the bath now, and stay on schedule, I run the risk of later releveing, and having all my fixtures and wainscotting messed up?
I checked the crawlspace (12 feet of vert. room) and it looks like the central posts may have settled some, but cant really tell. The bottom of the joists seem pretty level???
Thanks for any help
Replies
How plumb is plumb, and how square is square?
Nothing is, in an old home (or new for that matter).
Maybe, you could just measure off of the ceiling down and wainscot from that reference. Everything would then appear to be, um, level.
http://grungefm.com
Thanks for the responses. I guess it's better to jack up the beam, get' r leveled now, then have to deal with crookedness down the road. Now, to tell the mrs' that the guests will have to use the other bathroom for awhile! Jacking the house is the easy part! HA!
Cheers.
ps. Gotta' love this forum.
If the house isn't leveled first you're headed down a slippery slope of constantly fighting things that are out of plumb and level.
Of course it's sometimes easier to say than do. :-)
LOL, making something level in an unlevel house will probably make the level item LOOK unlevel. ;)
I'd probably try to reduce that 1/2", but wouldn't worry too much about it being perfect. Because next year when you decide to put new supports in the floor below and jack everything up 'level', that tub is going to be off again.
jt8
"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success." --Albert Schweitzer
If I drop a marble on the floor of my old house it immediately takes off rolling for parts unknown and is never seen again. House is solid, just 220 years old and crooked. If the house is good and solid and you don't have work planned for every other room I'd leave it alone.
If you need to get a metal column beneath the center beam to stabilize it - go for it. But jacking that center beam will give you cracks and nail pops in alot of places - and whether or not it impacts plumbing, gas lines, etc, remains to be seen.
Your choices appear to be 1) remodel the bath and be a hero - but you'll live with an unlevel floor that you've lived with for a while (that you never noticed?) or 2) prepare the wife & kids for a months long project that will probably entail work in every room.
Good luck! -Norm
Make sure your level is on the level. To verify your level is accurate, set it on a solid surface such as a floor or countertop. Use shims to get it level (dimes and duct tape). After it is dead-nuts level, swing it end for end, it should still read level. Many new levels are out of kilter by a half bubble or more. The cheaper ones are really bad.
Squares easily get out-of-whack too. To test your square, place the long leg against the factory edge of a sheet of plywood or something you know to be straight and scribe a line down the short leg. Flip the square over placing the short leg real close to the scribed line. Scribe another line - the two scribed lines should be parallel. If not, the square isn't square.
To open up the square a bit, strike the inside of the apex with a hammer and centerpunch. To close it, strike the outside. Be sure to place it on a solid surface such as the anvil on a vise. Good Luck
To be precise, the earth curves 1/16" in 466' 10 1/2". For instance, the middle of an aircraft carrier's flight deck is 1/16" higher than the bow and stern. Or else, if the Navy insists on a perfectly flat deck, then the center would be 1/16" closer to sea level than the ends.
You must decide whether to use a horizontal reference plane at one point or to use plumb Robert points and extend lines at 90º to these for a so called horizontal.
~Peter
<For instance, the middle of an aircraft carrier's flight deck is 1/16" higher than the bow and stern>
That's prob'ly why them planes jus' jus seem to shoot off on up inna' air.
Forrest - looking for the tough answers
This discussion is exactly why I come to this board: good, sound advice, with a little dissention thrown in to give you reason to think!
Who is it here whose tagline is, "Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things?!" Goes for 1/2" out of level on 6', definitely. Unless it's moving, leave it alone and count your blessings. Only 1/2" over 6'? Luxury!
The wall of my existing house is dead nuts, +/- 1/8" from level, for about 30 of its 38 foot length. It then nosedives over an inch, maybe 1.5", over the remaining 8'. Never noticed until I had the attached garage torn down and could shoot the full length of the wall uninterrupted. It's amazing how badly out of level or square something has to be before it registers as such in the brain of the average occupant of the room!
I'll adjust the shoes of my planes accordingly. After all these years of making things flat, I find out that to really be flat they need to curve. ;-)
I remodeled an 1860's log cabin (now a house) When I hung the first 12' sheet of drywall (level) the other end was 6" off the floor. That may be an extreme example, but no way was I going to "level" the house without "leveling" it (as in knocking it over) We still refer to the place as the skateboard park - the floors are all over the place, but it has charm, character & history.
In most cases it is best to scribe, fit, do what looks best, and as my first boss used to say, "split the difference" I'm not advocating shoddiness, but adaptive building.
Unless you find a structural problem somewhere, or an easy level, stay on schedule.
When I remodeled my bathroom (in my 1949 house) a few years ago, I discovered that the floor was 2 inches out of level over 9 ft. I had never noticed it before and indeed I only noticed it when I laid out the wall tile. Think about it, I have been doing carpentry and masonry since the 1970s and I had lived in the house for 12 years at that point and I honestly had never noticed it. In my case, I could not level the floor in the bathroom without leveling up the entire structure of the house. I finished the remodel, have enjoyed it ever since and no one who has seen it has noticed that the first row of wall tiles (along the floor) grows by 2 inches as it moves from the back of the bathroom to the front. Several of the people who have looked at it are seasoned carpenters who would not be shy about remarking on it. I definitely wouldn't worry about a 1/2-inch over 6 ft. Like others who have posted here, I suggest you stabilize what you have, rather than trying to make it perfectly level.
if you're going to gut the flooring, don't bother trying to "level" the existing joist - add/sister to the existing joists, new joists that are level, put on your subfloor and you're done - going to lose some height and probably need a transition type of threshold, but it's easier than trying to jack the house/room
just a thought
I agree with the above posters who say not to jack it up. Stabalize it if you want, but don't worry about level.
I've seen cases where leveling the floor in one spot results in chasing level all around the house and never quite finding it (if that makes any sense). You might get it level east to west, but now it's high north to south, but to level that you have to get shims on top of the sills....
Rich Beckman
Another day, another tool.
Leave it - kids have much more fun with Hot Wheels if the floor isn't level.
Forrest - sleeping downhill
We have a conventional frame home built in 1976. From the git-go we discovered that everything was out of level/plumb by exactly 1/4" in 4 feet -- apparently the builder parked his gum on the end of his level and then forgot to remove it.