Would you touch this with a 10 foot pole? Wood floor that IMO should be concrete

[4570Man]

Under normal conditions no I wouldn’t unless done my way, but it’s my buddy’s and he wants me to help him. Some idiot poured his back pouch using manufactured joist and plywood to support the slab. To make matters worse he’s got water issues that need addressed. The joist that shouldn’t have ever been used like this have rotted and the concrete has settled about 2”. It’s not flush with the brick and even worse has broke the brick off. I don’t think the remaining brick has any support so it’s in danger of falling off. It would be possible to jack the slab back up but it would be dangerous so I’m not big on the idea. And he doesn’t want a concrete slab for some reason anyway. My suggestion was saw the existing slab out ( with the thought process that sawing would be less likely to make the brick fall off ). Then backfill the hole which will take about 40 yards of material then repour the slab. I’d feel pretty good about this being a lasting solution and assuming it doesn’t fall off during construction you’d have support for the existing brick back. For some reason he doesn’t want a concrete floor and wants wood. I’m afraid that even if the water issues was fixed and adequate ventilation was added it would still rot.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Re: Would you touch this with a 10 foot pole? Wood floor in a job that IMO should be

I guess someone figured it was no different than putting ceramic tiles on a conventional wood joist floor.

 

[4570Man]

Would you touch this with a 10 foot pole? Wood floor in a job that IMO should be conc

I haven’t calculated the load rating of the joist. Considering the concrete didn’t break and the joist didn’t sag during the pour maybe they didn’t do awful in that aspect. The biggest flaw was they didn’t have any other support for the concrete and they used a product not meant for wet location in a wet location. If the concrete had any means of support that didn’t rot away it probably wouldn’t have fallen in.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Re: Would you touch this with a 10 foot pole? Wood floor in a job that IMO should be

To me, wood and composite is just temporary garbage, so I have to give them credit for working with stone. Shame they screwed up so bad. You could try and support it, but what's the use? It would cost more than to Demo and start again. I was guessing that access to the underside was a requirement.

 

[4570Man]

Would you touch this with a 10 foot pole? Wood floor in a job that IMO should be conc

It’s actually stamped concrete not stone. If they had of supported the concrete better and only used the wood as temporary support they would have been alright. But the concrete is only poured inside a wall and once the wood rotted away its slipping down.

 

[ZTMAN]

Re: Would you touch this with a 10 foot pole? Wood floor in a job that IMO should be

So why can't they just mud jack it.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Re: Would you touch this with a 10 foot pole? Wood floor in a job that IMO should be

A friend constructed all kinds of elaborate raised concrete patios and walkways supported by columns. All heavily reinforced. When I said stone, I meant cement, stone or whatever, just not wood or some other second rate product. How thick is it? It it well reinforced?

 

[4570Man]

Re: Would you touch this with a 10 foot pole? Wood floor in a job that IMO should be

A friend constructed all kinds of elaborate raised concrete patios and walkways supported by columns. All heavily reinforced. When I said stone, I meant cement, stone or whatever, just not wood or some other second rate product. How thick is it? It it well reinforced?

I don’t know anything about the slab. Drilling a hole through it is about the only thing I could do to measure and that still wouldn’t tell if it was reinforced.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Re: Would you touch this with a 10 foot pole? Wood floor in a job that IMO should be

Metal detector? If you knew the floor was solid, you could just put in patio stones for footing and short jack posts.

 

[4570Man]

Re: Would you touch this with a 10 foot pole? Wood floor in a job that IMO should be

So why can't they just mud jack it.

I guess that’s a possibility but it’s about a 40 yard void on the bottom side.