Fixing skirting to uneven floor

[Boldy]

Hi there, I'm renovating a 1950's bungalow and am at the stage where I want to fit some new skirting boards. I have been practicing my scribes with the coping saw, and feel ready to have a crack this weekend at doing the job. One thing I have noticed is that one corner of the room is lower than the rest by about 10mm. I'm wondering how I should tackle this problem. Should I scribe the entire length of skirting to that corner? I'm thinking it might be easier if I get under the house and pack up under the floor boards. There is reasonable access there, and no wall to get in the way. Really appreciate any advice here.

thanks
Mike

[ausdesign]

If you've got a 10mm drop somethings obviously not cocher.
I assume the skirtings going onto polished boards or similar.
If the drop is over a small length then yes i'd get under & have a look to see if there is anything obvious.
The best solution is usually to fix the fault -not build to cover it up.
Having said that it is not always the most economical approach.

It possibly comes down to how long its been dropped for, whether you can live with knowing its down if your going to leave it [ I usually can't ] or whether the other half is going to let you leave it.

If the floor is carpeted then thats a different kettle of fish.

[pawnhead]

Well if you can get under there then it would be worthwhile investigating.
Car jack under the bearer/joist. A couple of fibro packers, or just drive in some timber wedges and fill up the gap with max bond. Maybe just wedge up the floor boards, but make sure you do them all evenly so you don't split the tongues off, then squirt in some max bond.

You might find that there's some timber rotting, or getting eaten by ants. Better to find out now, than when it keeps sinking.

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

What the other's said!

IF, once you've crawled under and had a look, you decide to live with the drop and simply go ahead and scribe the skirting, it may be worth your while to only scribe it to match the "leveller" (did I just invent a new word?) parts of the floor and then runs some quad around the bottom to cover the worst gaps.

We lived in a house that had seasonal movement and I did similar... then noticed that the gap opened and closed over the course of the year, moving the quad up & down. If I'd simply scribed the skirting, then there'd have been all sorts of problems.

(Later, we stopped the movement by installing aggie pipes and then redoing the floors and skirting "properly" but that's another story...)

[Boldy]

Great thanks very much for your replies guys. The more I look at it the more I like the floor option. I think some packers underneath the boards should help to make it look a little tidier.

[squashedfrog1]

make sure it's not a re-stumping issue too. If you need to re stump that can open up a whole new can of worms. I would expect a house that age to possibly need it. However its usually the FIRST thing done and by the sounds of it you're all but finished arent you?

Re stumping can move plaster, you can find all sorts of new gaps open up etc etc.

sf

[Trav]

A nice bit of gap filler fixes many problems....

[silentC]

Hmm, you say there's no wall to get in the way, but obviously there is one, or you wouldn't need to apply skirting to anything...

If your house is a platform frame (walls sit on the floor) then you might introduce problems at the cornice if you try to jack the floor up. I saw someone do this. Process was:

1. Install new wall frame, sheet it, fix cornice.
2. Come to skirting, realise there is a drop in the floor.
3. Try to jack floor up, which pushes wall frame up, top plate comes into contact with bottom of ceiling joist lifting battens, cracking cornice and lifting ceiling up.

So I guess if you already finished the rest of the wall/ceiling, then you have a problem.

If the floor is suspended between the walls, or the flooring stops at the bottom plate, then you might be able to jack it up that much.