Rain damage to plywood flooring during building?

Question

We are having a home built in Houston Texas and during the build some of the plywood flooring bubbled up after a rain storm. The builder has not replaced the flooring and has continued to build on top of it. Is this normal? The roof is not on the structure yet so it may be they are waiting for that before fixing the problem. If they do repair, will they replace or glue?

BTW - I grew up in a lumber town in Oregon, this plywood would have gotten a glue check fired, not because the grade was incorrect, but because of the high failure rate. Also, substandard wood was usually pulled and sold locally out of the mill to workers. Apparently now they sell it to contractors...

Answer 1

you are paying for this, dont take no for an answer, get photographs right now, if they have set the walls already, you are in trouble, what i mean is the floor has lost some of its strucure and load bearing strength, he will probably try to cover it up with a 1/4 sheet called underboard before they put the top layer down, later on, if this isnt corrected now, you will have either sagging floors or creaky spots where they didnt get it fixed at, and yes its normal, thats why new homes need so much work on them and after 7 years you will notice that you need alot of rework done, whats happening now is as you have seen for yourself, inferior construction material is being used in all trades, whatever is the cheepest is whats being used, anymore, and there is no pride in any of the work unless you do it yourself. trust me on this i do plumbing here in illinois. Ive seen some really lousy jobs get done, once the house is done, they send in a team to fix all the defects, and they dont even fix them , they hide them from the homeowner,

Answer 2

I would not be overly concerned about a few bubbles in your plywood sub floor. The removal of these sheets of plywood will do MORE damage to the joists then leaving them in place. Those ply wood sheets are GLUED with construction adhesive down to the joists below. Tearing them out will tear part of the joists with them and destroy the structure of your home.

I would suggest that if this is a really serious problem of bubbles in your subfloor that you demand that your builder put a second "top" floor onto the existing bubbled floor by adding at least a 3/8 thick plywood finishing floor before installing the carpet. If this is due to his neglegence on putting on a roof rapidly he will gladly do that.

Again, do not tear out the subfloor, have the builder add a second plywood of 3/8 or thicker directly to the bubbled subfloor. Do this, of course, AFTER he drywalls the place.

Answer 3

You are correct to be concerned. The quality of plywood has gone downhill. The manufacturers don't use enough glue, and delamination is a problem. Hopefully, your flooring will dry out and return to a smooth surface, but if you don't complain nothing will be done. In Texas there is a 10 year structural guarantee that comes with every new home built.

Answer 4

Some decking delamination during construction is common, I've been building for yrs (16). It can be minimized by putting down a Thompson's water seal or a similar product immediately after laying the floor decking. But apparently they didn't do that in your case.

They should replace the delaminated sheets after the house is dried in. I wouldn't let them just glue it down. The sheets that are coming apart are substandard and need to come out. The contractor should understand and have no problem with it.

Good luck!

Answer 5

I grew up in Oregon too..

I know that most of the time a repiar will be made after they have completed enogh structure to keep it from happening again.

Answer 6

Talk to the contractor about it and see what he plans to do about it. After all he is building it for you, you need to know.