Have a few of the floors out now and been advised that two of the floors are good enough to keep so I've been able to cancel some of the plywood sheets I have on order. One floor is still baltic but too damaged to polish, so we're going to get it sanded level to put floating floors over. Floor guy gave me the number of a bloke who can finish pulling up the baltic and might buy the boards off us for a small amount. Between these two, we've got more money freed up and we're now planning to put floating floors throughout the house instead of just sealing the plywood, which will look *much* nicer.
The front room floor had more than half the joists missing (but bearers completely intact, go figure) so we're replacing those with treated pine. The kitchen floor turned out to also have severe termite damage under the lino, but it also had bad moisture damage as unlike the front rooms there is very little space under the boards. In one corner the floorboards were sitting right on what looked like brick paving, and they were REALLY badly cupped. With the hallway at the back being concrete and not quite level (it looks like it was once an external path, so it slopes away from the house), the plan now is to raise the floor in the kitchen over the concrete so the entire kitchen floor is plywood, and will be much easier to put vinyl over.
Unfortunately this will mean the floor ends up about 2 inches higher than its current level - no biggie, just means the back door will have a small step onto the verandah. However, the big downside is that the floor cannot be raised 2 inches without the big old wood stove getting in the way. Apparently it is a really amazing top of the line woodstove (I don't know a thing about woodstoves but that's what every visiting tradie has said) so I'm going to try and sell the thing, buyer to remove.
The front room floor had more than half the joists missing (but bearers completely intact, go figure) so we're replacing those with treated pine. The kitchen floor turned out to also have severe termite damage under the lino, but it also had bad moisture damage as unlike the front rooms there is very little space under the boards. In one corner the floorboards were sitting right on what looked like brick paving, and they were REALLY badly cupped. With the hallway at the back being concrete and not quite level (it looks like it was once an external path, so it slopes away from the house), the plan now is to raise the floor in the kitchen over the concrete so the entire kitchen floor is plywood, and will be much easier to put vinyl over.
Unfortunately this will mean the floor ends up about 2 inches higher than its current level - no biggie, just means the back door will have a small step onto the verandah. However, the big downside is that the floor cannot be raised 2 inches without the big old wood stove getting in the way. Apparently it is a really amazing top of the line woodstove (I don't know a thing about woodstoves but that's what every visiting tradie has said) so I'm going to try and sell the thing, buyer to remove.
