Sagging Floors: Signs & Fixes

If you have a crawl space underneath your home, then sinking and sagging floors are an, unfortunately, common problem you need to look out for. Over time, the joists in the crawl space can weaken, compromising their ability to hold weight. If left unchecked for too long, you might even end up falling through it! Thankfully, there a few tell-tale signs that you can look for to catch sagging floors before they get too bad.

The first sign is the most obvious; if the floor above your crawl space bounces or dips when you walk on it, then there is a good chance that it is, in fact, sagging. Another common sign to check for is the angle of the floor. If it isn’t level, weakened joists may be the cause. If your doors stick, that may be due to the walls sinking along with the floors. The final sign to look for is wood rot in the floor joists. This will require going into the crawl space (gross, I know), but there is no better way to be sure about the structural integrity of your floors.

So, you’ve realized that your floors are sagging, and you want to have the problem taken care of; How do you fix it? There are several common tactics employed by contractors, such as concrete block columns and lightweight jacks, but none of these work in the long term. The best solution for your sagging floors, the solution used by Woods Basement Systems, is the SmartJack stabilizer.

SmartJacks are steel support systems used to stabilize and level the girders and floor joists in a crawl space. They are installed by removing a cube of soil, pouring concrete into the hole, and securing the jacks to the cured foundation. Each jack can support over 60,000 pounds, which makes it more than adequate for home use. SmartJacks are adjustable, and they are the only system that takes soft and unstable soil into account. If you’re having issues with sagging floors, give Woods Basement Systems a call!