How much of a lean is okay?

[GibsonGM]

Intense story, Gina. That was a very tough time...

Like the others are saying, and your handyman...I wouldn't sweat it. Floors can do odd things! PART of my 2nd floor slopes down 1" over 8 feet, then is fine. It's been that way for probably 100 or more years.

If the guy has found no real leaning, bulging, cracking that's new in the foundation....you'll get used to some off floors in time You get used to them, then they don't bother you at all. Keep an eye on the fndn once in a while is all.

My house had been closed up prior to my buying it. The dining room floor is 2 1/2" wide boards. Basement moisture had caused them to 'washboard', making the floor feel like it had big waves. For the 1st month, we would get seasick going to the bathroom in the night! Then, it was like nothing. And now, since I run a dehumidifier all the time in the basement, and wood stove up here, it has flattened back out.

No worries.

[1918ColonialRevival]

As others have said, it's very common for houses to settle, so I wouldn't worry about it. It may have even been that way from the very beginning.

It wasn't uncommon for workers to be drinking on the job back then, so you can't tell me that the effects didn't transfer over to their work. I've found bottles from a few old Baltimore breweries inside walls I've had to open to work on plumbing. I've also found empty cough remedy bottles (which were mostly alcohol back then) from a couple of local druggists.

Probably the most interesting was an empty embossed cork-topped bottle from Read's Drug with a paper label of "Dobell's Solution" on it. Dobell's solution was an antiseptic recommended by some doctors as a prophylactic against the Spanish Influenza of 1918.

[phil]

Pretty soon those darned new style flat rooms will feel boring, welcome to the world of old houses

[nhguy]

I always found the sloped floors easier to pick up spills. When I eyeball down the outside walls of our house it wavers back and forth at least a few inches ever six feet. Our former house bowed in the middle like a canoe.

[Manalto]

It requires less energy when playing with the cat, too.

[nhguy]

It requires less energy when playing with the cat, too.

Our ragdoll cat Stewie loves when I play with him using the over-sized super-ball. The nice part every room has a low spot and that ball finds it. I avoid the rooms where the ball ends up under a bed. Seriously though, almost all old houses have lean so unless your seeing lots of plaster cracking it's likely not much of a worry.

[GinaC]

My Italian Greyhounds aren't much for balls, but they do love their soft squeaky toys. I'll have to learn where to aim.

I have no plaster, just old drywall. It's about 1/2" thick and has no markings on the back. I'm told that cracks too. I have one 8' horizontal crack along the inside of a gabled room where the gable meets the straight wall, but it's a clean hairline crack that does look like it happened a long time ago.

[phil]

old drywall means old filler. the mud used often contained asbestos. Its found in plaster that was repaired as well. there was an era where the mud was made with it. It's ok just keep it in mind if you go pulling out the old drywall. At least try not to breathe that dust. Here the way it works if there is no date on the back of the drywall then you need to get it tested. If it's positive it goes in special bags and it gets trucked to alberta and buried. they charge a dollar a pound to take it. If it's negative we can just dump it but we need paperwork to prove the test. in a commercial situation they suit up to remove it carefully if it tests positive. It wasn't so much that the drywall was made with asbestos, but the mud was made with it so the asbestos will likely be in the mudded areas, near joints, if it is in fact asbestos. most of the old plaster wasn't asbestos as it was from an earlier period, in general. .Its common to find the old mud on plaster walls if they were repaired during this period. Im guessing the era maybe 50's? 60's , 70's? until putting asbestos in drywall mud was banned.
if it's in place it won't be dust, just if you go ripping into it you might take the precaution of having the filler tested. its the dust in your lungs you want to avoid.

[nhguy]

old drywall means old filler. the mud used often contained asbestos. Its found in plaster that was repaired as well. there was an era where the mud was made with it. It's ok just keep it in mind if you go pulling out the old drywall. At least try not to breathe that dust. Here the way it works if there is no date on the back of the drywall then you need to get it tested. If it's positive it goes in special bags and it gets trucked to alberta and buried. they charge a dollar a pound to take it. If it's negative we can just dump it but we need paperwork to prove the test. in a commercial situation they suit up to remove it carefully if it tests positive. It wasn't so much that the drywall was made with asbestos, but the mud was made with it so the asbestos will likely be in the mudded areas, near joints, if it is in fact asbestos. most of the old plaster wasn't asbestos as it was from an earlier period, in general. .Its common to find the old mud on plaster walls if they were repaired during this period. Im guessing the era maybe 50's? 60's , 70's? until putting asbestos in drywall mud was banned.
if it's in place it won't be dust, just if you go ripping into it you might take the precaution of having the filler tested. its the dust in your lungs you want to avoid.

That kind of crack is easy to fix with fiber tape then coating with durabond 90 as it's a setting type mud rather than the kind in a bucket. It is more difficult to sand, but being careful you can make nice smooth joints with minimal sanding.

[phil]

one of the first rooms I did I hired out and they applied the drywall to the ceiling of my attic. we asked if they could do round corners and they tried to drive a bunch of screws most of the way in leaving the screw heads exposed to try to help lock the lump of filler in there to form the rounded corners.

they did a lousy job of attaching the drywall and failed to add enough blocking , instead tried to share the joist that the drywall ends butted together on. then the screws were too close to the ends of the sheets.

I worked the finish over a lot and got it lookng perfect and painted it flat.

then the cracks came through. I tried the mesh tape and more mud to hide them but they have returned as hairline cracks through the paintjob.

the problem here is that if I add much more mesh and make a lump then use enough mud to hide the lump it will show. the ceiling is low and highly finished so it shows quite a bit and bugs me..
im cursing the drywallers for not just doubling up the places wehre they butt together , they just needed more backing and this would not have happened

after that experience I use the drywall tape and dip it in glue , I also add some glue to my mud wen I bed tape or fill joints. It hardens like rock.

Ive tried mixing a bit of plaster and adding that to mud , its a bit similar to the joint compound for filling gaps. It works but you have to use it up and clean the tools quickly. I used that when I did my own rounded corners. It took lots of coats of mud and I made a special shaped trowel for the job.

my drywall doesnt' crack and the tape doesnt' come falling off this way but I also do a good job of attaching it in the first place. I also use the corner bead and I use the glue mud mix to bed them. I've come to the conclusion that the difference between the taping mud and normal mud is that it has more glue and I add elmer's yellow carpenters glue diluted half with water to my taping mud. a word of warning, you can't sand the mud, but it does make the paper tape stick well. I still use the taping mud and I do not add glue to any finishing coats. I'm done with that once the gaps are filled and the tape is done. I found that if you do it the normal way the tape has to have a certain amount of mud behind it. You cant' squish it right down flat, so there is a lump that you have to hide where sheets butt and that is a normal part of the process. these lumps get feathered in and that is normal. the way I do it, by adding glue I can press the tape tighter and so then have less lumps to hide with the mudding.


I suggest that before you do such repairs, bang on the wall with your fist and check if the drywall itself is able to move. If it does this problem needs fixing. when I really saw it jump was when a door get slammed by wind, it causes forces on the drywall that can cause these cracks to show up.

Ive been pondering how to fix my attic ceiling cracks. I could open the meeting points of the drywall where they end butt together and add some wood to screw the sheets to properly.. for now I'm trying to ignore these cracks. the mesh tape didn't help but maybe if I wasn't so shy of building a lump and then subsequently used a lot of mud to hide the dips and rises then maybe It would have worked better. I stopped using the mesh and I use the paper tape but add the glue. Its a bit unconventional and takes longer than commercial techniques but it's worked for me and I never have peeling tape or air pockets or adhesion issues or cracks.

If the sheets have issues with the way they are attached in the first place it causes a lot of issues later on.. so I'm wondering if the cracks are a result of the sheets not being screwed properly. If they are attached well the sheets can move the cracks result.
I don't often see drywall cracking in straight lines like plaster commonly does. I use the drywall paper tape and my glue mud mix on plaster cracks and found it worked perfectly well for me. where you need the added plaster or the gap filling type of compount is where you want o fill large voids, like say a 1/4" gap between sheets. the mixture of some plaster in there makes the mud so it can fill such a space and otherwise it would shrink and crack and take forever to dry so you could close it up.


maybe on some interior walls you can access and fix attachment issues from opening the other side but hard to do in the attic ceiling and I dont want to start over. Its a huge job. maybe I could spray some foam in there , or something. on the average wall you can hide these waves and sags but in my case with the attic bedroom ceiling , as you enter you catch the reflection of the light coming in the windows and any waves or sags really show up a lot more than they would on a wall so the finish needs to be more perfect.

the drywallers didn't do a great job of the round corners but I wento ver them so many times with fill coats of mud that I eventually got the long curved corners to be uniform enough that they look ok. If I approached that again I'd definitely put some plaster in the mud because it takes a lot of material to build a rounded corner.. It did add a bit of class to the job despite the cracks that haunt me.
The real problem was that I hired drywallers, they were in a rush to make money and cut corners on the drywall application at the time I was too naive to stop them and make them do it properly. gee how hard would it have been to add a strip pf wood to screw the stuff down properly..? I hired them and that made me boss and manager and I needed to call them on it. hindsight is 20 /20
Maybe I can make a few holes and shoot some spray foam in near the drywall joints, that might stabilize them without taking it all apart. alternatively I could open the joints up to add wood, but what a job to do just because of these fine hairline cracks that keep coming through. being above my bed I can't stop seeing them and they bug me.

I know I carried on about my attic but I thought maybe the hairline cracks she's seeing in the drywall might be similar in cause. If it can move , it will crack again. the fibergalss might help especially if there is enough mud on top and then its is feathered in. I personally avent; liked using it since but maybe others have slightly different approaces to using the stuff. the stuff i used was about 6 inches wide and had sort of a sticky side so you can put it on and then start filling. maybe it would have worked if I hadn't gone cheap with the filler to try to prevent the inevitable bulges that are a natural result of all butt joints.