DYI VS. Professional Contractor
Construction terms can be difficult to understand. When it comes to your home it is vital to know what exactly is going on throughout the construction phase. When you hire a contractor, you must understand exactly what they are going to be doing in your home, and to hire an experienced, licensed, and certified contractor in the field that your project needs. The contractor should explain everything in detail and show you pictures of their work in progress under your crawlspace/subfloor. Many homeowners cannot crawl under the crawlspace on their own.
Brent of Jefferson, LA is a great handyman and has handled small projects around his home successfully. As we know in the year 2020, we can find a “how to” video on YouTube for every home project, but we know some projects must be done by a professional.
When it comes to your home’s subfloor in the crawlspace area any homeowner just should not take that chance of doing the project on their own with “how to” videos as their guide. Any mistake made in the crawlspace can cause huge moisture problems, mold, pest infestations, rot, and breakage. Brent realized as an expert DYI gentleman this project was just to big to do on his own. The equipment, and experience needed to do this huge job would take us 4-5 days with a crew of over 6 people. Anyone doing it themselves without the proper equipment would be incredibly difficult and would surely take over 4-5 months.
Subfloor VS. Crawlspace
A crawlspace is the space under your home of limited height that you would most likely crawl through to reach plumbing, wiring, and the foundation of the home. A subfloor is directly under your home including the wood members, sills, floor joists, beams and what the piers are connected to. Brent had enough space in his crawlspace so there was no need to demo or excavate the crawlspace dirt so we can work efficiently from the underside of the home. Brent’s problems were noticed from the inside. Brent would walk across his kitchen, and living room floors and noticed that they were starting to cave in. As most homeowners Brent was genuinely concerned. Brent was referred to Sunlight Contractors by a friend, but what made him call us for an estimate was our great reviews that are across the internet on all social media sites.
Brent’s Subfloor was a rot and moisture nightmare.
Brent’s moisture readings were extremely high over 33% in many spots. We explained to Brent the first thing that would have to be done is demo the floors in the kitchen and living room because the sills in the subfloor were damaged due to long term moisture exposure. We also noticed that Brent’s floor joists were being braced to the beams by 2X4 wooden member. We had to install 80 metal joist hangers throughout the subfloor to make sure the floor joists had enough support to the beams. When supporting floor joists, you need the proper braces, so your floors do not collapse.
Sunlight Contractors completely renovated, the subfloor so that Brent can install his own interior hardwood floors. Sunlight Contractors had to dramatically decrease the moisture levels drastically below 10%. We replaced 4 rotted sills with 20-ton jacks in 4 different areas, as well as 26, 2X12X16 floor joists, and 26 sheets of plywood. At the end of the project Sunlight Contractors wanted to make sure Brent would never have this problem again by spraying closed cell spray foam which is a vapor barrier, air barrier, and thermal barrier on the underside of his subfloor fully covering every wood member. Brent would never have to worry about mold, moisture, cupping, buckling, or caving in floors for the lifetime of the home. Sunlight Contractors always guarantees their work.
