Hi all We have just bought a house and one of the major things to get sorted is in the living room. The chimney breast had already been removed some time ago. The concrete block at floor level (where the chimney breast was) is standing a little too proud and the wood floorboards slope from it to the left, right and down the middle of the room. This creates an uneven surface for us to lay down any flooring, so would have to level this first. How would something like this be sorted? From what I can see, the floorboards would have to be taken up, concrete block shaved off a little and then floorboards put back on. Is this even possible or is this going to end up being a nightmare to fix?? Cheers
A photo would certainly help. How much higher is it? And what flooring are you hoping to put down? Lots of potential solutions, all of them requiring a little work, but hardly a 'mare
If you choose to grind the concrete down be warned that the dust will be horrendous. Worse than that even. You will need to protect everything and rig up some sort of extraction to protect yourself and your belongings. Can be done though.
Most likely it'll be a case of roughly SDS chiselling away whatever is required, and then levelling it off again to the correct height. Or, route away the underside of the boards that sit on it. Or cut away the boards over the actual slab and level it up to the surrounding floorboards. Or...
Thanks so far all... relief to know it can be sorted. I will upload a photo when I'm there next. The floor boards are just butting upto it. So you can see the top of the block. I'd say the block is about 1 inch higher than it should be. The floorboards bend upto it, so laying down flooring on top of that would be horrible. Regarding mess from grinding/chiselling, this is fine as the house is empty until we finish renovation. Cheers
Straight-forward, then. I don't understand, tho' - you say the boards only butt up to this raised section, but also that the boards themselves are higher because of this?
SDS with a scutch chisel might be your best bet. https://www.screwfix.com/p/dewalt-s...gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CJOg0sSY3dwCFY6q7QodEUII1w Or simply break out the concrete and re-cast flush. Straight forward but as said messy.
The boards are floor level and then have been bent/sloped up as they meet the concrete block, causing a slope on 3 sides of the block (4th side is against the party wall).
If you haven't got a drill or many tools, then a lump hammer with a cold chisel will be your best bet, if you chop off too much just fill with mortar and level it off, then when dry finish off your floor.
I did consider this, but the floorboards towards the edge of the room seem correctly lined up with the flooring through to the dining room