Updated 2-8-23
Phil is repairing the subfloor, water damaged from a leaking AC unit. In this video he shows you several little tips to make your work look professional.
⏱️⏱️Chapters⏱️⏱️
00:00 Your floor joists in a mobile home
00:50 Cable wire we need to watch for
01:10 Interesting situation by the wall
01:38 To help support the weight
01:52 In mobile home there’s usually a frame 3′ from the outside wall
02:21 Cut materials, when doing several, write the measurements on your board
02:45 Better to use screws if you can
03:00 Why he doesn’t build directly under the walls
03:37 Mobile home walls are never straight after moving and sitting for so long
03:38 You don’t have to use 2x6s
04:55 It can be frustrating
05:05 Living right
05:35 Boring description and hard to live that way
07:07 Had to use big bars, long 2x4s just to pry up wood
07:22 Lot of ways to do it by yourself
07:52 You can put a scrap under the support, against the floor joist if you’re worried about it
08:28 A 2×6 would set on the frame
08:45 You can do a 2×4 and then 2 by anything on the side and get 2×6
09:20 Can span the area and have a lot more weight support
09:30 Notched a board to add strength and join with the spacers
10:30 Thing about screws you can adjust
10:42 Making that area stronger because she had bookshelves right there
11:15 Went ahead and adjusted support board
11:40 If high traffic area you want to support
11:55 Plywood and 2x4s are exactly the size, they say
12:14 Lowe’s tongue-and-groove plywood
12:30 If you don’t use tongue-and-groove
12:55 Recommend you put two bys
13:15 They made the tongue and groove for flooring
13:30 Whenever you need to hammer a board in
13:41 Video to put floors in https://youtu.be/tXolAnaGu3E
14:05 Use 1 1/2 screws outside edges every 6″
14:20 Easy way to measure 6″ other quick field measurements
16:45 His 265# jumping on the floor
17:00 We’ll try showing you different floors and situations
17:40 He had to learn the hard way, trying to help you through that
17:52 Try to cut corners and you will pay a price
18:15 Don’t overlay the wood
18:44 When you put in or patch a floor
19:05 Mix a floor leveler
19:20 Bigger the package the better the price
19:37 How to mix the floor leveler the easy way
20:44 Do the same thing with drywall mud
21:30 How can you tell when the leveler is mixed right
21:50 Like a really thick soup
22:40 Want to fill the cracks
23:53 How he was originally taught by a flooring guy
24:30 Mix the floor leveler on the floor
All right. We’re going… This is what you’re going to run into in all your mobile homes. You’re going to end up with floor joists that go out and underneath the wall here, which is not much more, sometimes just a little bit bigger than a one by four with framing. But it is an inch and a quarter and usually no more than two and a half inches wide.
But all this concern with us is supporting the floor and not losing any support. If you notice, usually the, the bottom framing of the framework here is a one by 2, one by two and a half. They don’t use a full two by, but what we’re doing is supporting the floor. So we’re going to measure 15 and a quarter in between the two and in this case, there’s a cable wire I’ve got to be concerned about. So I’ll end up putting the board back here a little bit.
So we’ll have a way to pass through. But I’ll be laying it on it’s side from here to here, so I’ll mark 15 and a quarter. But then I get into an interesting situation over here. I’ve got to support this wall also, which is actually supported by the floor joists right here. So it’s not as important for the support, but I’ve got to be able to have support out here for the floor without it rolling off.
If I just fastened to here the further out I get from that floor joists the more it’s going to roll as weight gets on it, and usually you put your weight up against the wall. So to help my situation, I’m going to build out. I’m going to put a two by something here and probably another one here to space it out.
And guess what? There’s a frame usually about three feet from, from the outside. And the every one of these floor joists sit on it and we’re going to sit on that also. We’re going to get some support going across there by sitting on the frame and fastening to the outside. So we’ll carry you through that as we do that and you’ll get some ideas. There’s always another situation and there’s always more to learn.
What I did was went outside and cut the met, the measurements that I had here and I actually mark on the boards because sometimes I’ll run like four or five in a row. So this one says 15 and two, this one says 14 and five, and this one is 13, which is down here. Put in boards right here.
And I’m okay with that. They try to use finished nails to hold it. So I went ahead and put screws in it and load them into place. They’ll work. I really don’t go that way. You can build out, which I’ve seen videos of another guy doing it. You end up run into a lot of troubles with screws, staples, cables, wires.
You have to notch your boards to sit flat a lot, and even then you’re going to end up with a swelled up wood, that’s going to keep you down. There’s a lot of issues trying to get directly underneath there. I understand why you’re doing it. Good luck with that, because my experience is these houses going down the road and sitting for 20 years or moving to another place.
They’re never straight. So what we’re trying to do is get a flat floor as flat as possible doing that. Well, we’re going to put in in this case, I don’t, you don’t have to use two by six. I happen to have two by sixes. We’re going to put them in here and then I’m going to fasten through the side. I prefer to get this one, and we’ll just see how much of a difficult thing. See and it’s not even cut right.
So yeah, you get it quite often. It’s terribly frustrating because you’ll be tight to go in, and then fall out. That’s part of the reason that people don’t do it right, because it’s hard and guess what life is hard to live. If you’re going to work hard. If you’re going to live, right. They don’t ever show that in the movies. The guy who works hard all day does the right thing, keeps on doing the right thing day after day.
That’s hard. Nobody wants to do a movie about that because it’s not quite as exciting. But it’s hard to do. Don’t look for it to be easy. If it easy, then look for something. The other shoe is going to drop soon. We have to figure out some way to prop this up. There’s a screw holding me. All right, I’ve had to use big bars or long 2x4s to pry up on it, and if I didn’t have help, I’d put blocks on the end of it using a fulcrum and another block to keep it going down too far.
So there’s a lot of ways you can do it. If you have to do it by yourself. In this case, I have some help, but I want you to know that you can, because you’re Americans, not American’ts So I’m a little bit worried about that. So if I put a scrap underneath here to make sure it stays, we have to have one right there.
And I’ll, now I space that out so that if I put a 2 by on that it will allow me to be out here on the outside of the wall. If I use a two by six, I can literally sit right on the frame and go that direction with a spacer against. But what I’m going to do is because I’d have to have a really long two by six, and I don’t think that I can support it very well.
I’m going to probably have to go with a two by four. Pan that over there. All the way from here. Right here. Now you say two by four. You can use it to the six, which you can also use a two by four and then lay two by anything on its side, right here and you’ll be the same as a two by six.
So that will be the same height here. So what I’ll do is I’ll put a spacer here, any kind of 2 by material here. Right above that frame which I showed you where it was and then the 2×4 will sit on that and screw to that. So we’ll span, and I’ll have some spacers along that way to screw to, and we’ll have a lot more weight support that way.
Okay. What we’re doing now is we’ve notched down here, give it just a little bit of extra strength. So I can go around this. I measured to the center of the frame here. I’ll put a spacer on, a spacer about here, and we’re going to go right like so three and a half inches past.
An inch and a half deep. It will sit flat on that will be where we need to be. It must be something underneath, but it’s pretty close. And just adjusting. That’s the thing about screws, you can adjust it over and over. I’m going to put another couple of screws here and more into the spacer back there that should be really strong.
She had bookshelves right here, so I expect that to be bookshelves again. I’m going to put a maybe three more spacers along there, then I’ll measure to that 2×6 which is 73 and three quarters. And I’ll notch another three and a half inches. So, we’ll connect to that, and that will be fastened really, really strongly, 73 and three quarters and notch.
Just follow my… Okay. I went in and adjusted this. I didn’t like how that was sitting up, I cut it down a little bit here and cut it a little deeper over there, refastened it. I’ve cut in the board with three and a half inches going underneath and over here it’s screwed.
I’ll put in spacers against that joist, so this would build out and screw that.
So there’s a high traffic area I want to make sure to support. There eventually will be replacing this floor. We’re going to play the game like it’s going to be right there. Now I’ve also cut the plywood. This particular plywood is 23/32 because they’ve been cheating people for so long that 2x4s are not two inch by four inch and 3/4 plywood is not truly three quarter.
Now, they’re making you do a little bit of math. This is actually 23/32. When you go to Lowe’s. It is tongue and groove. That means right here there’s a groove and then this is the tongue. So we’ll have to manhandle it in there. And I won’t. If you don’t do it with tongue and groove, you can go ahead and put wood underneath each space and that way you won’t get movement.
If you don’t have tongue and groove, you will have to put those two bys in there or otherwise. This sheet and this sheet will move as people walk on it and whatever covering you’ll have right there will have a line in it. So if you’re not using tongue and groove, which is fine and I recommend you have at least 5/8, this is close to three quarters for your floor replacement.
When you do put two bys everywhere, you put it an angle, put in a two by stitched together with screws, and in this case we have tongue and groove. We won’t have to worry about that. This is actually made for flooring. So that’s what you’re going to see next when we get back is this will be in place screwed down well at the manhandle it in there’ll be some hammering, and whenever you’re hammering take your hammer and a scrap piece of wood instead of hitting on this wood and damaging it. Take a piece of scrap wood and smack that. All right.
Right. I guess I’ll show you at some point. There’s another video on there. It’s like and hour and half long on how to put these floors in. Has a lot of tips. But we cut this in a little bit tight and I wanted it tight. And then I hammered on it while I was sitting on it that way.
And then I hammered on it and I had to put my foot down to try to get that groove in. And we hammered on it that way. Now, you put an inch and a half screws which will go through this thing three quarters of an inch into the floor joists and I’m putting screws on the outside edges, every six inches.
How do you know how you know if you got six inches. Well, it’s absolutely not that crucial that it’s got to be six inches. So when I tell my guys, stick your finger in your thumb and be inside of your finger and thumb like that. And then on the field, we want to have 16 inches. So. And how do you know that?
Well, I told my guys, go from your wrist to your elbow and generally you can guess and you can be more is not bad thing if I’m using an impact driving screw gun and I like Ryobi because mathematically it’s the best for the money, but it’s constantly driving that tip down in there. Now if you use just a regular drill, it will tend to twist up and get up on top and try to strip.
So sometimes you end up having the let off a little bit on the drill. If you get used to it and drop back down in an impact, keep pounding that thing into that tip so it doesn’t strip as much. That’s a hammering that you hear. We’re not going to match exactly, because I believe this floor in the kitchen has been wet before. So, it’s swelled up. So we’ll put floor leveler in there to make it close.
That’s my 265 lbs. That’ll give you an idea of what kind of strength and then we’ll be putting this all in with screws. Everything will be screwed down. Everything’s going to be fastened with screws. And I’ll try to take you along the way. But believe me, there’s another several other flooring situations and I’ll try to give you guys as much as different situations.
Like I’ve replaced little tiny bathrooms, replace right in front of the air conditioner, a whole house. There will be. It would be a frustrating situation, but hang in there. Screws will back out and cut it, set it back in. Personally, I had to learn this over the last 20-30 years. So I’ve been in this area 26 years and I’m still learning, so don’t go into it.
Nobody taught me this. Somebody taught me the wrong way. I had to learn that that’s not a very good way and I won’t even bother telling you who that was. But every time you try to cut corners, you’re going to pay a price. My mother used to say rebellion has a price. Well, rebellion is when you know what’s right and you don’t do it.
So do the right thing, guys. Take the extra time. Use screws, not nails, use thicker wood. Don’t overlay it. Because if you overlay this over top of the existing floor, the floor below will not only swell up like we had here, we’ll give you a you’ll have to smash it down. Then you’ll be standing on the staples because eventually all that wood will deteriorate, and then the floor will move within four or five years, if not quicker.
It’ll be moving all over the place because it’ll be standing on staples in one place and not on, wood on the other place. It’s a horrible idea. Knuckle under, Quit being a rebellious person. Do what you need to do.
Hey guys, over and over again when you put in or patch a floor, end up with one being just a little bit higher than the other little indentions, cracks in between and you like you don’t really want to put your tile on there because that will eventually show up through your linoleum or through your tile. So you have to mix a floor leveler.
And this paticular is called fast setting deep patch. Extremely expensive, but the bigger the, bigger the package way better price. You get one for one third of this for $17, or you can pay $25 for this or $35 for one twice the size. It’s really stupid. They’re just making money on the package. So I’m going to tell you there are a lot of different ways that people will tell you to mix.
Some people mix it up by hand with anything I’ve seen butter knives. Some people start with the finishing knife that’s how I started. And stick it in a pan and mix it around. you can do that. You can use a stick, but I’m going to show you what I do. What I do is put about an inch, maybe a little more of water in this pan.
And then I pour about that much in there. And guess what? I had a ryobi drill. Used to use the beaters, the plastic beaters that you use for mixing eggs. And all that kind of stuff. I use to buy it from Walmart and all those places, garage sales. And then they would burn up. And so I just started taking those beaters and I get them at thrift stores and such.
And then I use this electric drill. I didn’t put enough, so I’m going to end up adding more, but I’m going to make sure that what I’ve got in here is pretty mixed. I do the same thing with 20 minute drywall finishing mud and 45 minute drywall finishing mud I did exactly the same setup. Except it’s not. That’s for drywall. You know, my guys get all worried about.
How do you tell when it’s right. Ok, you don’t want it as thick as peanut butter. And you don’t want to lose enough to fall off the knife. So somewhere beyond peanut butter. They like to use, I don’t know why, the word plastic like consistency.
There is nothing plastic about that. You spread on the floor. So what we’re going to say is like a really thick soup. That’s not so thick as it’s like peanut butter. And then.
“You want to rinse that?”
No, I buy them for about a quarter a piece, and they build up and I smack them a little bit and it falls off. So that’s a good question.
I want to fill that crack. Little bit stiff. We’re trying to hide where that crack is at. Mind you, that cracks probably never going to move. Because I’ve got screws and wood underneath that. If you’re watched any of my other videos, this is a separate video just how to do this. If it’s low on one side, you want to build up on that side. Mind you, we’re going to be putting glue over all of that.
So there’s what I do, but we’re going to do it all the way through all the cracks so it’ll be hard to find the cracks.
Okay, This is the way I was originally taught by a flooring guy. I don’t typically do that anymore. He would just pour out a bunch of it on the floor. He would make a hole in the center. Then he would pull water in it. This is this is exactly I mean, I’m not trying to make it look bad, this is the way he did it.
Sit there and mix it on the floor. Thank to Janet, I have these cups of water ready to go. I’m not running to a sink. So if you believe in evolution as being something that gets better with transformation as time passes, this is what I came from. So we’re deevoluitionizing.
So, again we get that consistency. There you go. I don’t do that anymore.