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Posted by Michael Bulatovich on April 22, 2007, 7:55 am
>> I am building a new house and my building inspector warned me that the
>> floor joists can shrink with time and the floor will sink accordingly.
>> He says that he has seen vertical gaps of up to 10mm between the
>> skirting board and the floor a few years after the house was built.
>>
>> I recently rented a house where I was able to see this. Half way on
>> the first floor walls there is a gap big enough to pass notepads under
>> the skirting board from one room to another. Towards the ends of the
>> walls the gap is minimal.
>>
>> That the inspector was right is fine but what is the solution while
>> you are still building the floor?
>
> I'm not sure I buy the inspectors opinion. If the joists shrank,
> wouldn't everything come down 10 mm? I think it is more likely
> shrinkage in the base trim. If it is the joists, the only solution I
> can think of is to either use engineered lumber or else somehow be
> sure that the wood is kiln dried and that it stays dry before trim
> goes on--not really a real world solution. At any rate, this isn't a
> big problem. I would just use a base shoe, which is a secondary peice
> of trim that can be nailed to the floor. If you are doing it
> yourself, you could even hold off on the base shoe through a heating
> season or whatever until things have stabilized a bit.
Marson's right. You won't see that much on the first floor of a
balloon-frame or western frame building due to the joist shrinkage (alone).
Something else is at work, though I don't think baseboard shrinkage could
explain it either. Depending on the local climate, much of the normal
shrinkage will occur early in the first heating season, and can often happen
during construction itself, before final finishing.
Always use dry lumber, and keep it as dry as you can while exposed to
minimize shrinkage.
--
MichaelB
www.michaelbulatovich.ca
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