Wonky floor cowboy builder

[showusyerkiev]

So we had a builder put in a new floor (new joists, floorboards and ceilings below) but we have discovered they are not level! He blames it on an old house but seeing as they are all new one would think he would make them level!!

So short of taking him to small claims (which it may come to) what can I do to level it? It's not like we can pour over a screed! It's off by about 6-12mm. Such a cowboy

You mean it runs off to a corner/side? Or it’s up and down across the whole floor?

Two rooms. The really bad one which also has a corridor sort of runs down towards the centre, I've played around with spirit levels and it's rubbish. Pretty sure some of the noggins are above joist level in the bigger room - and the free standing wardrobe isn't straight. The smaller room is more obvious and the corridor is massively so. He has used chipboard floorboards and glued them together so I can't really investigate why. I'm guessing the joists are lower in the middle

Leveling floors is (very) time consuming. Can involve chopping out brickwork, issues with skirting, doors, a lot of fitting and refitting.
Would change the quote by a lot.
If you don’t have ‘leveling floors’ in your contract/quote, I’m not entirely sure you’d get anywhere.
You could ask your insurer, or if he was part of a trade body, ask them.

Yep defo time consuming and expensive but something he lshould have done properly in the first place they were brand new joists put in by him, so all the skirtings were ripped out, old ceilings and floorboards ripped out and new joists to replace the old sagging ones, Downstairs and upstairs were like one big room on both sides of a stairway (it's a classic old two up two down). He is saying that he was lining everything up to existing but it's all new - done by him and the only thing he should have matched it with was the extension.

So I'm guessing I have to take him to small claims as there's no way I can afford to have them levelled now he has done them wonky. It actually looks like the middle joist is lower than the side ones and basically makes what looks like a sagging floor all over again! And the corridor is on an angle.

I told him about the issue before the skirtings were put in (still not done in corridor outside the room). He had the cheek to tell me he had fixed it! Then he said nothing could be done.

The way you explain it, sounds like there was no reason for him not to make them level.

No- he says it's because there was a walk in cupboard in the corner of the room but he knew we were getting rid of it and making the room smaller to put in some stairs, so that is just an excuse.

I'm wondering whether there is anything we can put over the top of the floor to level it, as opposed to making him pull up the whole floor. Like maybe cover the whole thing in boards of different thicknesses? Thin at the edges where it's higher and then thicker where it seems to bow down?

Of course the ceiling below isn't flat either but that's not such an issue in an old house. I'm just so furious about the floor though and I told him about it ages ago

You CAN actually use self-levelling compound (even over a suspended wooden floor, I was surprised to hear) but obviously if you ever need access to the floor you either have to rip everything up or go in from below.

I have seen people level old floors by building a frame (sort of like a frame for decking) over the existing floor -
As you can see in the video, it is pretty time consuming, but would probably(?) be cheaper than going back under the floor and building up the joists. You will lose some ceiling height, though.

We have very uneven floors upstairs (hills and valleys across the whole floor). We are having the boards taken up and the joists built up where they have previously been damaged. Inevitably there will be some sloping across the floor as a whole, but I think this is ok - it won't prevent any flooring being layed over the top.

Amazing! I'm struggling to open the link though - could you send me the link to YouTube?

Probably the easiest way is pull up the chipboard.
Find the highest point or whatever you decide to level at. Screw (bolt?) new (maybe thinner) joists to the side of existing ones, but obviously level them so you obtain a flat floor. If you need to reduce the height in some places you can get a circular saw to run down the side of the existing ones.
You will have to refit the skirting, doors and you’ll have to buy new flooring.

Sounds like I basically need to get a quote for all that and take him to small claims court for the cost of it.

He did loads of other bodged jobs which we have fixed ourselves but this is just too big a job.