Why does every house have at least one room with a crooked subfloor...

At a job in Phoenix last month, I spent an extra 3 hours shimming a living room floor because the plywood was warped so bad, has anyone else noticed this getting worse with new builds?

4 comments

4 Comments

fionam1121h ago

My buddy whos a framer said lumber mills are cranking out wet wood just to keep up with demand and it shrinks unevenly as it dries. He showed me a stack of OSB last summer that had a 1/2 inch curve across the middle, like a skate ramp. Ive also heard theres less quality control now since mills just rush everything through to get it out the door.

tessap7323h ago

extra 3 hours shimming a living room floor" - man, that is brutal. I had a similar thing in a house I was helping a friend with last year, we ended up using almost a whole box of shims just for one bedroom. It's like the plywood comes pre-warped now, straight from the lumber yard. You open a stack and half the sheets look like potato chips. I don't remember it being this bad even five years ago. Builders must be getting the cheapest stuff they can find and nobody cares about quality anymore.

charlies3719h ago

Everything's cutting corners lately, from houses to cars to the coffee beans at my local store.

amy_martin14h ago

Disagree completely, I've been in construction 20 years and wood quality today is way better than the garbage they were pushing in the late 2000s crash era. @fionam11's buddy is right about moisture but mills have actually tightened specs since the pandemic boom settled down.