Soft spots in relatively new hardwood floof

[Jane]

Hi,

My husband and I moved into a newly constructed house this past December. We did not buy the house until it was finished, so we had no say and did not see any of the construction. We have a 1 year builder's warranty. My question is this: over this winter (which was extrememly cold here in the northeast), we noticed a few soft spots develop in our hardwood floors. Is this normal or is this something that we should try to get fixed under our warranty? Does it really need to get fixed and how hard is it to fix? Does it involve extensive ripping up of the floor?

On the advice of a friend, we are compiling a list of things that we would like the builder to fix before our warranty is up. We got the name of a good home inspector (and we know about the problems with home inspectors), from a good friend and are planning on getting the house re-inspected sometime in the middle of the summer-early fall (so that the house will have gone through one winter, and most of the humid summer), so that we will have an inspector's report to back up our requests to the builder.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-Jane

[dadiOH]

What do you mean by "soft"? Soft as in rotted/rotting? Soft as in = summer wood vs winter wood?

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[Jane]

I'm not sure I know the difference. The floor is kind of "bouncy" in the spot and peculiarly, it seems to be only one board, not several...which one would expect if something was going on with the plywood underneath.....

What do you mean with summer wood vs winter wood? We have noticed that some gaps have appeared between boards, and we attribute this to shrinkage due to the dryness of the winter months and expect that the gaps may disappear as the humid, summer months come on. What does this have to do with soft spots?

-Jane

[default]

He was trying to decide whether by "soft" you meant that the floorboard moved, or that the floorboard dents/crushes easily. Can you see the subfloor from underneath? If you get down and look at the floor sideways, is there a high or low spot there? When the board moves, is there any noise involved, and if so, what kind?

As a last-resort technique, you could drill into the subfloor from the underside using a forstner bit, and examine it..

[m Ransley]

It probably is the sub floor, you should look at it from underneath even if it means cutting a hole in a ceiling. It isnt normal and should be covered by warranty . Im sure it could be fixed by additional support. It is something that should be looked into as it could get worse. I dont see removing the floor as being necessary.