Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - So I pulled my carpet & foam only to find...

... a somewhat unlevel floor.

I've been moving a 6' 2x4 around to test levelness and I found one area that seemed to be a "high point". I could get gaps of up to 1/4" by moving the 2x4 around the high point.

And, amusingly enough I just noticed that the area had been spray painted and circled by the construction company. What does this usually indicate? Also, the boards at the "high point" are somewhat different cut then the rest of the floor.

You can see it at:

http://www.hitman.cc/floor2.jpg

What does this usually mean? Since this area is the only non-flat part of the floor, should I attempt to sand it down with a belt sander or something? Or should I pull up the subfloor to see what I'm dealing with? I'm just wondering why the builders spray painted a circle around it. Seems they knew about it and didn't do anything about it - would this be covered under my warranty if so?

thanks...
~rob

How new is this home? It would probably be hard to get the builder to cover any costs if it's over a year old.

I would recommend pulling up the subfloor to see what the issue is. What do the joists look like underneith?

I can't really see the efected are from the photo, but it could be a warped board, miscut piece, etc.

If there are joists directly under this area, try and fasten it down some with 2-3" wood screws.

Maybe the hump is just a coincidence. The crude way it was cut out (reciprocating saw) makes me wonder if the HVAC guys or maybe a plumber didn't cut it out to do some work below the floor (like maybe they forgot to run a duct?). The cut ends in line with the duct in the background, and continues off the left side of the screen... only reason I can think of why that would be done would be to run some long ductwork or something. Maybe the spray paint was simply to mark the location of the ductwork elbow.

One option would be to sand the hump out with an aggressive belt on a floor sander.

I agree with hotinokc in so far as pulling up the area. There has been some obvious "after the fact" cutting done to the floor. It could have been as xsleeper has suggested. His reasoning makes sense. If so, they wouldn't have been all that concerned about flat because carpet was going in. It could also have been some sort of attempted repair and the marks on the floor were the result of a walk through creating a punch list of problems to be resolved. In any case, you need to take a look at it to determine what needs done. Sanding it down with an aggressive sander might accomplish the needed flatness, but you may be passing up a golden opportunity to correct something that really needs attention while the floor is exposed.

These are some great suggestions. I was thinking of pulling the OSB up and seeing what's what under there but I thought there might be an issue because of the one piece of OSB that is under the black roof felt roll in the photo. Since it goes under the corner (back left) of the drywall and molding, I wasn't sure if there were nails underneath there (since I assume they put the OSB down before the walls were finished). I didn't want to have to pull the drywall and molding off just to get that piece of OSB up to replace it.

I was thinking of pulling the nails near the "high spot" of where the cut is and using a belt sander to sand it down to see if this will get it level enough for me, but honestly I really am curious as to whats going on under there.

Think the sanding would do the job?

You don't have to take the entire piece up. You can set a circular saw to the depth of the OSB and cut down the middle of the closest joist.

Ah yeah that's what they pretty much did when they did whatever work they had to do in there. I think I'm going to try the sanding idea and if that turns out not to work then I'll pull the thing up and replace the parts that need to be replaced.

Thanks for all the help.

If you are sanding by hand using a belt sander, you'll want a 36 or 40 grit belt.