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I’ve been working on my DIY kitchen remodel project for a while now. This past weekend’s task was to get the floor prepared for the new in floor heating and nice new tile.

Here is a picture of me removing the old flooring. I used a pry bar to slide under and pry up the old flooring pieces.

Once I had all the mess cleaned up I started in on the patch work. The goal was to patch up the floor where an old furnace vent had been.
The patch must be:

• strong enough for me to stand on (200+ lbs) and take walking abuse for many many years.
• stiff enough to not flex as we would be putting tile on it – and if tile flexes it may crack.
• flush with the surface of the floor to avoid a bumpy or sagging appearance in that area. (which could also cause the tile to crack).

Here is a picture of the hole in the floor after I removed the old furnace vent and duct-work. I used my circular saw set at 3/4″ depth to cut a wider hole out of the original floor boards – the top most boards. The 3/4″ depth was chosen so that I would NOT cut into the sub-floor boards!!

These three pics show how I progressively built up the patch from a 2×4 board that I screwed into two floor joists just below the sub-floor boards with three layers of wood that brought the patch flush with the original floor top.

Here is a diagram (made in google sketchup) to show all the of pieces involved. The floor joists in in the diagram are not visible in the pictures above – because they are hidden by the floor and sub-floor boards. Interestingly, the top floor boards are about 1/8 larger than my 3/4 material – this is why I added a spacer made out of masonite.

Here are couple pics of the final product : a nicely patched floor.

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