7 Ways to Stop Bouncy Floors

Picture this: you’re walking across your living room, coffee in hand when you feel it – an unexpected bounce underfoot. No, your home hasn’t magically transformed into a funhouse.  

What you’re experiencing are bouncy floors, a common (but often overlooked) issue many homeowners face. If you’ve found yourself in this situation, don’t worry—it can be fixed.  

We’ve put together a comprehensive guide to help you understand why your floors feel so strange.

Here are seven proven solutions to restore your bouncy floors. 

Bouncy floors are an SOS signal coming from your crawl space. Most likely, there is excess moisture below your home. 

In fact, crawl space moisture is the leading cause of most crawl space issues including mold, wood rot, and pests. As these problem signs compound, they break down a key structure that keeps your floor solid: the floor joists. 

When floor joists are damaged, your floor looks uneven and becomes bouncy. You can see an example of this in the image. Here’s the good news: every problem has a solution, and we’re here to ensure you land firmly back on your feet! 

When floor joists fail, this solution becomes the backbone of a firm floor. Crawl space support jacks evenly distribute the load of your house, ensuring your floors remain as steady as a rock. 

Being adjustable to nearly any size crawl space, support jacks stabilize your home’s damaged support beams and floor joists, counteracting the pesky bounce. Groundworks installs the SettleStop IntelliJack™ system, which provides reliable support for your crawl space, handling loads over 24,000 pounds per jack.  

Tested and certified to the highest industry standards, it consistently upholds your home’s weight with unwavering strength.

Crawl spaces are generally damp and uncontrolled environments. Nothing separates your floor and dirty crawl space—that’s where our vapor barrier steps in.  

This moisture shield keeps water at bay, whether it’s groundwater or humid air. Groundworks uses a 20-mil vapor barrier made with polyethylene material and anti-bacterial properties. Besides keeping water out of your crawl space, it also makes the space look more inviting, as you can see in the image. 

Installing a vapor barrier in your crawl space stops the upward movement of moisture (called the stack effect), preventing warm, humid air from reaching your floors and the structures that support it. As a result, your floors stay bounce-free and solid. 

Bouncy floors signify a damp crawl space, which means high humidity below your home. Luckily, our AquaStop crawl space dehumidifier is ready for action.  

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it’s ideal to maintain an area’s relative humidity under 60 percent. This lower humidity also helps to deter pests, such as cockroaches and dust mites.  

Unprotected crawl spaces tend to have much higher relative humidity, so mold and pests can appear quickly. Eventually, they damage the structures supporting your floor. 

By removing up to 100 pints of water a day, our AquaStop Air System prevents wood structures in your home from soaking up moisture and becoming weak due to mold or pests. Our dehumidifier system is self-draining, so you won’t have to go below your home just to empty it.

Airflow regulation is a game-changer in keeping your crawl space—and subsequently your floors—dry and sturdy. It was once thought that crawl space vents would allow air to continuously flow in and out of a crawl space, creating a cool and controlled environment. 

Unfortunately, these vents had the opposite effect; they actually made it easier for humid air to get into a crawl space. Stopping this airflow is now one of the best ways to mitigate crawl space moisture, and our crawl space vent doors are built for this purpose.  

By controlling the amount of outdoor humidity that enters, these vent doors prevent unwanted moisture build-up that might otherwise lead to bouncy floors. When used in tandem with other crawl space solutions, they help keep the environment below your home well-controlled. 

Our crawl space insulation delivers a double whammy – it keeps your floors firm and your feet warm. We use foam board insulation, which is much better suited to a crawl space than the traditional fiberglass insulation used.

Our insulation reflects heat. This could be the heat within a solid object (conduction), the heat moving through fluid (convection), or heat radiating outward (radiation). This is achieved because insulators are poor conductors of heat due to their low thermal conductivity. In other words, they’re experts at keeping heat where it belongs! 

Our insulation is called ExtremeBloc™. This standout material has an impressive R-value of 11, which measures its resistance to heat flow – the higher the R-value, the better the insulation.  

Our insulation has a built-in defense system against termites and other pests. By preventing energy loss and moisture intrusion, it helps maintain the structural integrity of your flooring. 

Our drainage systems and sump pumps are the water management systems you need to stop excess water from damaging your floors. Groundworks installs crawl space drains that boasts a special filtering exterior. 

This prevents rocks, dirt, and other debris from getting inside the drainage tube itself and decreases the likelihood of a clog. Meanwhile, a sump pump operates by detecting water that enters a designated collection pit (sump pit) and automatically activating it to pump the water away from your home.  

Our sump pumps come with an optional backup battery, so it stays running even in a power outage.

Working together, these systems effectively move groundwater water away from your home and prevent it from collecting in your crawl space and weakening your floors. Without water, bouncy floors have a hard time coming back.  

When in doubt, call the experts. Our experienced professionals at Groundworks are ready to conduct a free inspection, diagnose the exact cause of your bouncy floors, and prescribe the best solution.  

Our company has helped millions of homeowners across the U.S.A. repair and prevent crawl space problems. Remember, your journey towards steadier steps starts with understanding the root causes and knowing the remedies at your disposal.

Our team is here to help make that process easier. 

We all know that life is full of ups and downs, but your floors shouldn’t do the same. Our solutions are designed to work together in a whole-home solution called crawl space encapsulation. Groundworks has the industry-leading tools and expertise to install encapsulation in your home.  

With local offices across the country, our team is committed to making your home as safe, comfortable, and functional as possible. Embrace firm, steady floors, and leave the bounce behind by contacting us today!