I wish I'd tried that marble on the floor of an addition to the house we bought to remodel. After the seller left, removing the heavy drapes, we could see the vertical cracks around windows and windows that wouldn't open. The addition had sunk an inch. This was a one-floor addition, about 20 X 20 -- would have cost $10K (for starters) to raise the foundation.

We once owned an old frame home. Had jackposts in the basement that had to be adjusted from time to time to compensate for continual settling. House was 80 years old -- still moving!

There's no easy cosmetic fix I know of. The only thing you could do is either pull up the floor and subfloor, add shims before relaying or install a false floor though I don't think I'd do either one. Structural problems can be in need of fixing or so old, and now stable, that it would be pointless.

In my kitchen the floor in front of the left hand side of my 48" range is 3/4" higher than the same floor at the right hand side of the range. I just adjusted the feet of the range to keep the surface level. In one way it's good since my taller husband feels better working from the low side of the floor.

Buckled floors where sections running with the long dimension of floor boards have raised can be settled down pretty easily, BUckled floors are often seem when there has been flooding, or other moisture-related issues.

Whole floors that slope or slant are more complicated. Unless the house's structure is compromised by undersized joists or rotten sills, I would never consider this a problem. Once you got furniture in (and may be make adjustments as I noted above with the legs of the range), you won't see anything to make you queasy. BTW, houses with slanty floors can change over the course of a year in a "normal" oscillation due to expansion and contraction of wood.

My house was built in the 1840's and still has its original flooring and timberframe and except for one place where a cellarway was removed and the new flooring as shrunk and receded below the plane of the adjacent flooring, I don't plan to make any changes.

My cats love it as it makes for lots of natural rolling of their various toys and balls. They all seem to fetch up against certain walls. It's no secret why! I think of it as convenience since it makes the toys easy to find.

Molly~

Molly,

Thanks but it really does give me vertigo (or something similar, I literally get queasy). The house I saw today was empty but the one that I came close to buying was fully furnished and slightly cluttered (no that part does not bother me) and it bothered me so much that I declined to make an offer after fully intending to. Your post really did explain one thing, when I first saw the house in September it really did not seem bad except in one end room which would have been one of my kids. So I had decided I could probably deal with it. Then it was not available and became available again in February so did a walk through before making an offer and the vertigo thing really bothered me all over the upstairs. I thought it was the pressure of having to make a decision (other people were also bidding) that was making every flaw stand out. Maybe it was the difference between late summer and mid winter in terms of the rotation. Thanks for the explanation although it does not give me as much comfort that the problem can be fixed

Yes Sue I often bring a marble especailly when going back for a second look or sometimes an actual level. The furnished house was way off. I am so sensitive to it that I can usually tell when I walk into a room and the marble and level always confirm it. DH of course thinks I am nuts for so many reasons

So, this is a "no" after all. Keep looking and keep using your smarts -- you are not nuts! Expansion and contraction due to changing seasons is one thing -- this sounds more like a structural problem. I can put up with mouldings at our house that separate slightly at the joints in winter (even with a great humidifier on the furnace) and look perfect in the summer, which is when they were installed and painted. We couldn't put up with the sinking addition; one of the last straws that decided us on a teardown!

I do really like the house, the price is good and is one of the few houses in the area I can afford (it is not cheaper because of the slanted floor). SO I am not sure how to go about researching this. The house is about 3000 sq ft, so if I had to redo all the floors to make them level and perhaps do some structural stuff how much would it cost. The difference is nobody else is all that interested in the house (although my karma is such that they will get an offer now that I am interested) so I have time to research this issue. Thoughts on how to go about that?

Don't do it. Structural damage is expensive and full of unknowns.

What if it is only cosmetic. What happens around here is the main beam gets some termite damage, is replaced with a metal beam and whatever settlement that occured as a result of the beam being bad is left, hence the level problem, especially on the second floor. I know I should just stay away but I really do wonder if ripping out the floors and redoing them could fix the problem. Under those circumstances I would be willing

Saphire,
Clearly its your choice. As someone who lived in a money pit for 18 years, I can tell you that repairs are no picnic on older homes. In our case, nothing was ever as it seems. And everything was twice as expensive as we anticipated.

Fixer uppers are not for the faint of heart or shallow pockets. But if your spirit loves this property, Good Luck in making it yours :)

I don't think it's connected to motion sickness. I get motion sick and slanted floors have never bothered me. I think you're just unusually sensitive to this sort of thing.

(Reminds me of someone I used to know who had trouble working on computers because she could always see the flicker as the screen refreshed, an effect most of us can't see.)

In a the case of a purely cosmetic effect, how can this be fixed, is it expensive? Also is the problem in the floor or in the ceiling or walls? The house is expensive so anything under 30k would be almost irrelevant in the scheme of things.

Honestly, I think This Way Lies Madness. Keep looking. I've never heard of an older home that didn't need work. If you're going to add on work that most people wouldn't find necessary, this could really turn into a money pit.

We looked at a home recently -- it was gorgeous, but the kitchen had a slanted floor. Thank goodness, the realtor asked if we could see the disclosure before making an offer. The house had been in a flood & the basement wall had collapsed about two years ago. They had oodles of documentation that all had been repaired at the direction of a structural engineer. But the floor still slants, so we walked away from that one.
Susan

If you are certain (as in, you got a professional to render an opinion) that it is only cosmetic, there is indeed a fix. You can buy "floor leveler" in 5 gallon buckets which is basically a concrete that has been mixed to a very liquid state and it pours like honey. Build a "dam" out of two by fours at the doorways to the room, and pour just enough to cover the floor of the entire room. If it really is off by an entire inch, you will now have a new problem, being that there will be a one-inch step in the door, but usually the slope is more like one-quarter inch per 10 feet, and that is small enough that you can hide it under a transition strip.

The concrete itself won't be structually sound, so if the floor flexes at all this isn't an option. But strong floor that is only a little crooked can be fixed.

Thanks MFBenson

I do still like the house. Would this work on a wood frame house that had a slanted second floor? The supports for the second floor are wood

Also it seems like the problem is coming from an addition that was put on in the 60s or so. The second floor master is fine, it is the other end that is all off. Also I checked the moldings over the doorways with a level and they are fine so it may only be the floor