Subfloor Preparation for Hardwood Flooring
I am removing 30 year old wall to wall carpets in 4 bedrooms and installing new 3/4″ Solid Red Oak Hardwood (leaning toward Appalachian’s Prestige, semi gloss 3 1/4″ wide).
I have pulled up the rugs and see a few metal straps sticking out from wall sill plate. See pictures. What are these straps and are they performing a needed function? Can I just cut them out?
Also I have a couple areas near outside walls where the plywood subfloor has water stains from past water intrusion issues (leaky roof/windows). The water intrusion was resolve years ago, but was wondering how to determine if the subfloor is okay or do I need to replace stained portions? It seems structurally sound and is not delaminated or swollen, I do have some hairline cracking (have some hairline cracks in other non-stained areas also). I read that if the subfloor is water damaged, it could impact the flooring nails’s holding strength?? Provided picture of worst water stain which is in a closet.
Any comments or suggestions appreciated.
Dan
Replies
Sometimes framers will nail metal strapping to the outside of the bottom plate so that when they raise the wall they can't kick them off the floor as they raise them. That's what those look like although I've never seen them left in place. I'd remove them.
As long as the plywood isn't soft it should be okay.
Drive a nail into the water stained plywood with a hammer. You should get a good feel for whether the plywood is soft or not. When you pull the nail out you get further feel for whether the wood is holding the nail well.
The pictures dont look terrible but its hard to tell from pictures alone.
I think I'd add that it might be a good idea to close that gap between the subfloor and bottom plate with some construction adhesive.
I use an icepick to to test possibly damaged wood.
Thank you all for the excellent feedback. thank you "2sheps" for noticing the gap between my bottom plate and the subfloor. I actually noticed this but did not fully explore it. The detail looks weird to me. I can't see everything without opening up the wall some more. In one area it looked to me that the subfloor only goes about 1 1/2" under the sill plate and then hits another piece of wood. But that does not make sense to me so I will explore some more.
Regards,
Dan