Compensating for uneven flooring in a house

Question

I moved into a house where the floors are uneven. The whole house is a bit slanted. Without convincing the property management company to hire a repairman, what can be done about this? I have a friend who is a carpenter and was thinking of asking to borrow a level. The things that bug me the most are the

1. bed (more accurately a futon)
2. chair
3. desk

I've tried folding up cardboard and putting them beneath the feet but it's a bit messy and for things like the chair that get moved a lot, it doesn't work.

UPDATE: it's very hard to even know which direction to compensate in, for example it seems you can feel it's unbalanced but can't tell which direction it's unbalanced in (even with the use of a level).

Answer 1

In general, you can't do anything! Is the house uneven, then it is uneven, and needs fixing. You can always pad or build under the different furniture to some extent, but that mainly works for stationary furniture like a bed or desk.

When it comes to more mobile furniture like tables and/or chairs, these are not so easy to stabilise. Besides considering to build a new floor (possibly on top of the other floor), which doesn't seem like it is an viable option for you, mathematics has an interesting option, namely rotate the chair or table.

According to this article Strange but True: Turning a Wobbly Table Will Make It Steady, you'll be able to get all four legs in contact with the floor, aka being stable, with simple rotation of the table. Rotation, however, does not guarantee that the table/chair is level afterwards. So then it becomes a choice of the lesser evil: wobbly chair or uneven chair.

(added) On the feeling of balance

Note that the feeling of balance is not only physical. Objects can be level, but due to the surroundings they might feel unbalanced. In those cases you just have to adjust according to sense, or get used to the feeling.

When using a level, you use it on the object you want to make level, and then lift either end of the level to see where you need to compensate. Say that you need to lift the left edge of it, then you need to put more padding under the left edge of the object as well.

Answer 2

I also have a problem with sloping floors. I had a platform king twin split frame. The floor is so bad that I had to put jack stands on one side of the bed just to make the bed level. That is no joke. My solution to this problem was to put a 2x4 under the center legs.

Answer 3

For bed, desk and other "fix" furniture, you could use felt pads. They're cheap, easy to install and replace.

If you need more than one, I suggest applying as many as needet minus one, use a nail to keep em in place and stack the last felt pad to prevent the nail from scratching your floor.

The chair is more of a problem. If the chair is at a relatively fixed location you could do the same, but mention turning the chair by 90°. Then the chair would wobble even more. So here you really have to even the floor.

One way to do so could be a rug. Put some newspaper under the rug at lower levels to raise them a litte. Of course this only works for some mm befor getting ugly, but for heigher uneveness the only good solution is leveling compound which isn't a hack.