I drove a few nails into the bubble hoping to level it out some but now there are prominent dimples. Help! I need to get these nails out of the carpet and then figure out how to get rid of the bubble in the subfloor.
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? Best Answer
You PROBABLY installed the subfloor TOO tightly, with no room for expansion, this, causing the buckling.
Pull the carpeting back and run a circular saw along all the seams of the wafer board.
Install additional screws where the problems are, trying to hit the joists as much as you can.
You can put fasteners between the joists as long as they are screws, screw nails, or ring shank nails. NO SMOOTH SHANK NAILS.
I will offer this, since you tried nailing through the carpet…. you may want to try this… I do not recommend, BUT it may work.
Instead of using nails through the carpet… they make “trim head” screws, try a couple of these, since they are very small headed and threaded they will pull through the carpet backing, sinking below and may tighten up the buckling.
As I said, not really recommended unless you REALLY know what you are doing, A carpet thread can catch on the screw and pull a whole “runner” out ruining the carpet.
It will be cheaper and a better job in the long run when you admit you made a mistake, accept the extra cost and fix it right.
See if you can make a deal with the carpet guy… either you pull it up or have him do it… shouldn’t cost “quite” as much as the original job… but then he IS doing twice the work by pulling it up so i would not blame him if he does charge the same
What kind of sub floor did you use standard ply wood or tongue and groove OSB or CDX , did you lay the sheets down all one direction or did you cross lay like your suppose too, did you use old school and nail it down or did you use screws every 8 inches along the joist. Sound like you missed a few nails I would have used CDX Min 5/8inch with a screw every 6-8inches. You may have to pull the carpet back and use screws No sheet of ply wood is level and straight nails have a tendency to pop screws prevent that. also did you glue and screw Did you use construction adhesive on the joists along with nails, If no more then likely you put the sub flooring in wrong You never want to nail down a sub floor through carpets It voids the warranty of the carpet when you do so I would have made sure the sub floor was properly screwed and glued prior to carpeting to avoid having to pull it out to re screw the floor.
Hope it helps
Lr
Source(s):
worked in construction
This is what happens when you try to do a job cheap and use inferior materials. I would never use OSB or waferboard or any similar material. In my opinion the stuff is crap. If you were willing to spend all that money on carpet and installation it makes no sense to use a cheap and inferior underlayment. Now you basically have to take up the carpet, rip out all that crummy waferboard, and use a good quality plywood. What might have happened is some moisture got to the waferboard, causing it to swell and buckle up.
What I would suggest is to get a couple of gallons of waterproof wood glue (I presume you put down this waferboard on top of an existing plywood floor) and spread the glue out evenly and laminate the plywood to the floor with deck screws driven in a grid pattern 6″ on center over the entire surface of the plywood. But before you do even this, locate the floor joists under the existing subfloor and drive 3″ deck screws 3″ apart along the entire length of each joist. If you do this you will not get and bubbles or heaving up of the floor.
A cheap solution is never a good one, and will end up being very costly in the long run. It’s a self-defeating proposition.
Source(s):
.
Gork
You need to pull the carpet back to the first nail then use a wide “wonder bar” nail puller with a fulcrum to draw the nails up one by one. Then see if any nails have popped up which caused the bubble. If so, then you need to use drywall screws to fasten the subfloor back down. Then lay the carpet back and press it back onto the tack strip.