My husband and I are in the middle of redoing our living room, but we're facing a problem: the floor shakes when we walk on it. We thought about using OSB plywood because it's affordable, but my father-in-law is pushing for lauan plywood instead, which I've read might not be suitable for our needs. My husband is inclined to go with what his dad suggests, but I'm concerned. Is there a better solution we might be missing for stabilizing our bouncy floor?
3 Answers
If your floor shakes badly, you might need to look into additional support under the crawl space. That could really stabilize things further!
OSB is usually used as a subfloor, while lauan is a thinner plywood that’s typically placed on top of a subfloor before laying down vinyl or other flooring types. Since you mentioned that the floor is shaking, it's crucial to ensure that the floor joists are properly spaced and securely connected to the rim joist in the basement or crawl space. Adding blocking between the joists can really help with this issue!
Neither OSB nor lauan will solve your bouncy floor problem. The bounce comes from the floor framing flexing. Start by checking for blocking or bridging in the floor framing; if there isn’t any, adding it could help. If there’s still a bounce after that, measure the span and size of your joists and compare them to an online span calculator to see if they’re up to code. If not, you may need to reinforce them by sistering the joists or adding a beam!
Just a heads-up, if your house was built in 1912, you might not have a subfloor under those hardwoods, which could be contributing to the shaking. Something to consider!