Uncovered Problems

 

One thing about remodeling a home, is I almost never do something without uncovering hidden problems. There always seems to be at least something. In the case of the first bedroom of the big bedroom swap project, I noticed that the threshold between the bedroom and the small walk-in closet had cracked and sank about 3/8 of an inch and also along the entire wall that runs along that direction.  There are no other cracks anywhere else which for a 50 year old house, is saying something. Since the above wall follows the centerline of the house and holds up floor joists running in each direction to the outer walls, I'm assuming that it was poured without any or much of a footer below that area and basically just settled a bit.

I'm not really worried as it is a 50 year old house, the cracks were done a long time ago judging from their discolored hue, and there is good old Iowa clay underneath so it really isn't going to go anywhere. Also it was only 3/8th of a inch so it really wasn't too noticeable with the old floor on top. But the new floor has a tolerance of much tighter than that and so I decided to fill that area in.

I have never leveled a concrete floor before but I watch a lot of YouTube videos of people who do. I knew there were two options. I could buy some self leveling concrete and just pour it in the low spot or I could buy some stuff that you must trowel in place but can be smoothed out to a feathered edge. Since I wasn't real positive on the overall levelness of the room in the direction of the cracked concrete and it wasn't a very big area, I went with the latter troweled leveling compound. 

I bought a bag and not knowing how much I would need, I just mixed up the entire bag. It said to mix thoroughly and that you had about ten minutes of working time before it BEGAN to set up. I thought that was plenty of time. But in only a couple minutes of troweling it on, it was firming up rapidly and I started working frantically focusing on covering the most area versus getting it filled 100% to grade. I made it to within about 18" of the end of the wall before it was just too hard to work with anymore. I was a mess, my tools were a mess, the bucket was now solidly plugged with concrete and the floor was a mess. 

So I cleaned up everything, made a trip all the way back to the store for a second bag of the stuff and a much smaller disposable bucket. The second time around I mixed it a lot wetter and was able to get the remaining 18" done as well as go back over the previous area and fill everything up to grade. (The above picture was taken between attempts.) But by the end of 10 minutes, it was set up like a rock again. They really underestimated the working time on that stuff.

Fortunately it looks pretty good though it made a mess of the baseboard trim which I left in place. It was fastened high enough that even with my leveling of the area, the new flooring should still fit under it nicely and reused baseboard never goes back up like it looked before it was removed. I'm going to have to do a fair amount of scraping and sanding before repainting it but I was planning on the painting part anyway.

So it was my first time to do such a job and I'm glad I'm done. Next up I'm going to remove the last few things attached to the walls and prep them for paint. Then I can hopefully lay the flooring and move onto the next bedroom involved in the swap.