Expert: Bruce E. Johnson - 2/24/2010

Question
A friend of mine had his double wide mobile home vandalized last August.  Unit is a 1998 60x28' Champion in excellent condition.  Water supply lines were cut in the laundry room and Master bath and resulted in water discharge over a four day period as he was out of town.  Estimated water discharge is over 50,000 gallons. Sub floor appears to be sagging and spongy with water damage.  My question is can the entire floor including all layers from carpet/vinyl to wood frames/joists down to chasis be removed and replaced without disturbing load bearing walls?  Also, since so  much water pooled on the floor, is there a possibility of water damage to particle board that wicked up water to the interior/exterior walls?  Thank you.

Answer
Hi Nancy, the sagging floors are due to the fact that they are probably particle board which totally deteriorates under water.  It's been a long time since I have worked in a mobile home plant but back then the floor system was built and the flooring installed and then the walls were set.  I suggest that you remove the carpet and padding and see if the sheathing is dry and free of mold.  If so. Then you can probably get by with putting a layer of 1/2" plywood over the top of the old sheathing.   Try to find the floor joists and nail the plywood to the joists and glue it to the old flooring with liquid nail adhesive.  This should stiffen up the floor enough to go ahead and install new carpet etc. If the floor is really rough you may need to go to 3/4" plywood..Most mobile home doors are a good inch and a half up from the floor so you shouldn't have to trim the door bottoms down to compensate for the new floor thickness.  As far as the particle board underneath the walls?  It probably did wick up water.  This may have had a detrimental affect on the wood underneath the walls.  However, the walls above these sections of floor may have provided enough weight to keep the particle board compressed during the wet process.  For spongy or rotten wood you can inject a thin epoxy product called Git-rot But I don't think you need to get that involved in these areas. I hope this information helps, please feel free to write again regarding this or other matters, sincerely bruce e johnson..bejohnsonconsulting.com