I finally finished a tile job that should have taken a day but ate my whole weekend

It was a simple 12x12 porcelain tile install in a Phoenix bathroom. The subfloor looked fine, but I found a huge, soft spot right in the middle after pulling the old vinyl. It was a rotten patch of plywood about 3 feet wide from an old leak. Had to cut it out, sister in new joists, and put down two layers of new underlayment. The repair alone took 8 hours. Has anyone else been blindsided by hidden rot under an otherwise solid floor?

3 comments

3 Comments

ericb661mo ago

Phoenix bathrooms are brutal for that. The subfloor can seem fine until you peel back the vinyl and find a dust pile. Was the rotten plywood near the toilet or shower?

val_fox1mo ago

Dust pile sounds dramatic, but sometimes it's just old adhesive and crumbly backing. Could be fine once you sweep it out.

margaretshah1mo ago

Had a buddy deal with this exact thing in his Chandler place last year. He peeled up the vinyl in his laundry room and found a pile of black dust that looked like mold at first. @val_fox was right, it was just old glue and crumbly backing from the 90s. He swept it out, put down some new underlayment, and the tile he laid over it has been fine for 8 months now.