Ideas For A Sagging Wood Floor

FreemanTN

We have a commercial client with a floor problem. In recent the recent year we have pulled up an old warehouse wood floor and installed it onto a stage for the University. The floor is on a sleeper system and is now being used a little differnet from the initial intent. We now have a 3,000 lbs. piano moving back and forth across the stage rather that staying put. This has cause the floors to sag and the piano to get stuck and even knock out spots on the floor. I know that you can use foam injections to pull up concrete floors but what we are tring to find out is if anyone has used foam injection to stiffin up a wood floof system. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Tim Garrison PE

I'd be careful with anything injected between layers of wood. It would have to be an "expanding" product that perfectly fills the gap, no more and no less. Too much expansion and you've got a big mess on your hands. Too little and you've accomplished nothing. And if the "new" floor ever is replaced, what to do with the goo?

I'd recommend pulling up the floor and using more sleepers, especially in the area where the piano travels. I've written about pianos on wood floors, here is a link. http://www.constructioncalc.com/blog...wlspace-major/

In that article, I investigated a 5/8" plywood subfloor and found it way inadequate. How thick is your "new" floor? It could be that it's just too thin? How far apart are the sleepers?

genecarp

Freeman, go to the Intro page, tell us a little about yourself and your pro exp, Thanks, GMOD

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Floordude

The sleepers are placed too far apart.

8" spacing for sleepers is recommended. That gives you the required nailing schedule, too.

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FreemanTN

Thanks guys, i finally got ahold of a foam company who would acutally talk logically to us. It seems that foam will add rigidity but it must be applied directly. We can not inject the closed cell foam and expect it to move and expand over 3-6 inches from where it makes contact with the suruface. If this application was over a crawl space we could do this dirctly and help our cause.

We were trying to avoid taking up the floor since the wood is about 100yrs old. It has been disturbed once and we would have rather not have moved it again. Now it seems as though will will have to.