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SMS

wrote:

When the floor was screwed down, did they put screws no less than 6"
apart along all the joists? In this difficult case, I'd put them
every 4" If that doesn't solve it, then depending on what sound
remains, I might consider opening the ceiling below, depending on
area, etc, so that you can inspect the suspect joists hangers,
nailing, etc. Taking out the ceiling might be easier than removing
the flooring.

The joists may be non-existent in that area.

I had a small section of flooring on a step 40" x 15" that seemed to not
be level, but I didn't worry about it. It had three 1" thick oak boards,
each about 5" wide by 40" long.

Last Saturday I stepped on it, and the wood gave way and I went down
into the crawl space. Amazingly, there was no sub-floor, and no joists
underneath. There were screws through the oak planks, but on two of them
they went into thin air. The planks were held together by small dowel
pins between them, and the front one was on a 4x4 beam, but the two
behind it were not attached to anything. The front board remained
intact, the two behind it collapsed.

These houses were built in 1963 with wood floors, and I think that it's
been this way all that time. No one does real wood floors with 1" thick
oak anymore.

It was very difficult to repair, due to the tiny amount of crawl space.
I figured out a way to attach some joists, and put in a sub-floor, and
now I'm putting in some 1/2" oak planks on top of the sub floor.