Cut Floor Joist High Spot

Jack it up and sister join another joist to the original one.

Cut floor joist high spot.

The joist underneath the hump may appear thicker than the joist on either side of it because of moisture. If the cut outs are too large or in the wrong location the joist can be weakened and unable to support the load it was designed for. Sometimes joists are notched at the end where they bear on a wall or sill. High areas in the floor are called heaves and low areas are called dips.

Use a circular saw to remove the subfloor to expose the high joist. Essentially a hump on the floor was created by the excessively crowning joist. A high joist is a different conundrum. Start by cutting out a small 1 2 in 2 5 5 1 cm section of the floor joist with a reciprocating saw.

Shear is what would cause the joist to break in half and the floor to collapse an unlikely outcome unless the joist is extremely overspanned overloaded or heavily modified. This will create a weak spot. I pulled all the nails first then cut the path the nails were on with a saw set to depth of the subfloor. Step 2 look at the joist.

Cut only the area where the hump is not the entire floor. Bending however is a more realistic concern because it takes much less load to exceed the allowable deflection of a floor. I cut out a span of plywood over 3 joists total the high one in the center planed it down with my electric planer and was able to reset the same subfloor i cut out. A floor joist will bow upward creating a heaved area on the floor above.

The joist on the other side of the crowned joist was properly level meaning it was in plane with the end joist. The most basic method is to take a piece of tar paper fold it in half and then push that. Pry the floor joist from the subfloor with the back of your hammer. Back to addressing the high spot.

Fixing a low joist is pretty straight forward. Then use pry bars and your reciprocating saw to pry and cut the floor joist away from the subfloor. What we found is that one technique is to pull up the subfloor and shave down the top of the joist. I noticed the high joist when i removed the old carpet.

To remove the existing floor use a circular saw. Minor high spots for hardwood and laminate floor installations are easily fixed with tar paper shims. It s a sign of a high spot.