attention carpenters/ flooring dudes

Chuckman

Chuckman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2005
Location
Huntersville
ok, need some advice. family has a 90 year farmhouse that had a covered porch floor made of tongue and groove oak blind nailed to some ooolllld hand made joists until this summer. Pops has a terrible knee and when the floor got a soft from rot he had some local (to there) guys pull it up and replace all of it. they had to cut up the joists and start all over. we ordered pre-primed dried oak floor, and had it painted when done. I wasnt there when they installed it, but about a month later the thing was like a bike park with all of the new jumps in it- some were 4" high! so they came back and installed a vapor barrier (this is about 24" off bare ground, sides bricked in) and replaced the bad sections. now its doing it again, just a few months more. so now the contractor and the wood supplier are are arguing back and forth as to whats what and whos to blame. so, Pops is disgusted and wants to replace it all with 5/4" decking and I say hell no, the oak T&G should be installed correctly and it will last another 90 years. he says that the new joists are now 18" apart, and I think that had alot to do with it. now (really never was) theres no subfloor in this, its just planks nailed (maybe, maybe not) to these joists. would the floor buckle this bad if it was nailed down properly? it sure doesnt look like it, its TERRIBLE, the ends under the trim are down and tight, but the middle of the planks are really high and spongey. so what is the proper material and method for replacement of an old covered porch like this? I think the contractor just fubared the deal. :shaking: BUT Im willing to give the 'little guy' and I dont mean Dylan, the benefit of the doubt if we did indeed get bunk wood.

also, anybody on here in the Castalia, NC area a general carpenter? - most importantly GOOD and TRUSTWORTHY. $ doesnt really matter. service is worth paying for. I have a feeling this guy wont do any more work for us if he has to eat the cost of a do-over.
 
I'm not a pro by no means but I've totally redone 2 houses now and have learned to go for purpose / not looks. I predrilled, glued and screwed my porch t&g 2 years ago. Although you see the screws, it looks like it did the day I laid it. I for one would not use nails on an exterior floor. But I've seen 90 year farmhouses with it so if done correctly, I know it works?
One thought would be if the wood was dried correctly? I think I recall something like 85% being a magic number for exterior flooring when I bought mine? If not dried correctly, I'd figure it would shrink enough for the t&g's to come apart and buckle trmendously.
Also, which direction is the porch facing? Does it get weathered? In the sun much?
 
my first instinct would to check to see if it was fastened down properly....

maybe the wood was TOO dry when laid??? getting wet causes it to expand, it has to go somewhere, so it goes up.....
 
This is just my opinion so it's worth what you paid for it.

It's obvious the problem is moisture. In the previous installation it sounds like the floor joists took most of the moisture. In this installation it looks like the new flooring is. The moisture content of the new floor is much higher than when it was laid, the wood expands, thus the buckling.

You have to deal with the moisture problem. I see 2 possible ways: ventilate it, or stop the moisture at the source. I'm going to assume that the porch crawl space is sealed off from the house crawl space, if so, adding some crawl space vents might help ventilate the moist air that is coming from the ground. To stop it at the source, I would lay 6 mil poly on the crawl space floor, up the side walls and secure with some type of adhesive.

I would:
  • Pull up the new floor
  • Install crawl space vents
  • Lay down 6 mil poly on the floor and up the side walls
  • Let the new flooring dry out first, then lay it back down

If moisture is a big problem you may look at something that is not as sensitive to changes in moisture. I'm not sure if some type of synthetic decking would be better, Trex maybe, I don't know though.
 
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