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I broke this floorboard the other week and tried to pop it back up to mend with no success. How do I cut and slide this board out to put in a new one?

Sunken Floorboard

EDIT:

I was able to take the floorboard out, however as keshlam has pointed out, there was nothing actually supporting this section and thus when I put weight on it when walking in and out of the bathroom, it eventually cracked and sunk with my weight. I will be attempting a quick-fix by going back in the crawlspace and trying what keshlam suggested with the 2x4's.

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Looks like either there's no subfloor under that board, or the subfloor failed (rotted?) in that area. If this is ground floor, it might be worth looking at this area up from the basement or crawl space or whatever's under there, to see what was supposed to be supporting that board and what condition it's in.

That's assuming that there was something there. Someone may have done a sloppy install over a hole and simply hoped that nobody would ever put weight on it.

If you can get to it from underneath, and it was never properly supported, I'd be inclined to see if I could push it back up into position, then nail some support in place under it -- one or two 2x4's between the joists, tight up against the floor, then insert shims to fill any remaining gap between those and this board. Not very elegant, but more elegant than leaving a board floating in midair.

If you can get to it and discover that it was originally supported but Something Has Gone Wrong, you'll have to proceed from there.

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  • Although I did this awhile ago, I figured I'd post an update. It was impossible to get underneath it as the basement did not expose it nor is there crawlspace. I ended up chiseling it out up to the joist and putting in a similar board with the groove cut off. I believe the reason it sunk in the first place was the lack of a support on one end. Talk about a real "floating" floorboard! Oct 3, 2018 at 5:10

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