Dear World: I Cut Through My Floor and Found Satan (His Name Was Water Damage)

I’m Ash, and I’m a writer, traveler, nonconformist & nomad, and every week I’m sharing funny field notes from around the world. Currently, I’m in America writing about what it’s been like to return home to my small town, twenty years after living abroad.

Oh, you thought water was cool? Did you grow up learning that? Chugging that? Getting in your 8 glasses? Well I have news for you: water is now the ONE thing that can take all of your happiness and CRUSH IT WITH ITS BARE HANDS. 👋

Case in point: everything you never thought about.

For example, did you know that there’s really nothing stopping you from falling through the floor of your house at, like, any moment in time? 🤣 At least, if you live in an old house. This may seem like the exaggeration of a woman prone to hysterics, but I promise you that the only time I get hysterical is when I trip and fall in the kitchen and my wine glass goes flying and STAINS THE BRAND-NEW TILE GROUT. Because, that has happened. And, you know what else has happened?

I almost prayed.

Yup, same day!

So, you know it was bad, you guys.

I mean, I HELPED LAY THOSE TILES. They are brand-new zellige tiles from Spain. Yes, I am trying to be fancy farmhouse! Not Joanna Gaines farmhouse. Too tame for me. I am not the woman wearing Lululemon tights while flipping my ponytail through Target after I drop off the kids at school.

I am the woman wearing paint-splattered sweatpants and the kind of eyeliner that frightens church ministers as I hand out copies of my book, THE MIDDLE FINGER PROJECT, before before heading out to the garage to grab a knife and my crowbar. Which is a huge crowbar. Like the size of a small European man who studies philosophy and vapes outside coffee shops.

You know what I, Ash Ambirge, need an abnormally large crowbar for?

Water. 💧

Oh yes, full circle, we are.

Water—once my dearest gym buddy, now my solemn sworn enemy—is the STD of buildings everywhere.

Water = mold.
Water = bursting pipes.
Water = crumbling chimneys.
Water = drywall’s obituary.
Water = insurance’s favorite excuse to ghost you.
Water = Home Depot’s retirement plan.

And?

Water = everyone’s #1 fan favorite————drum roll————

✨ Rotten floor joists. ✨

Do you know what a floor joist is? I mean, because there was a time when I couldn’t tell you these things. But if you’re a new homeowner?

WE MUST DISCUSS.

Because these freakin’ things have all the power in this relationship.

Floor joists are like the rib cage of your house: they’re long pieces of lumber that sit horizontally under your floors. They’re basically the underpaid middle managers of architecture, AKA doing all the grunt work while the beams get all the credit.

And, important thing any house virgins should note: beams are not joists.

• Beams are the big guys—the main supports that carry the heavy load. Like the exterior walls. And sometimes the interior load-bearing walls. They’re the beefy bouncers of the house, standing at the door, making sure everything stays upright.
• Joists? They’re smaller, skinnier, and there are a lot of them—lined up across the beams like overworked interns. They spread out the weight of your floor, your furniture, your friends, your fridge, and, let’s be honest, your sweet, sweet Amazon purchases.

So: beams hold up joists, joists hold up floors, floors hold up you and your questionable life choices.

Why do you care about this wonderful math?

Because if your joists get wet, then your life gets ruined.

Sort of like mine almost did.

WAIT—BACK UP, BACK UP, BACK UP.

Let’s do a 3-second refresher:

• I’m Ash and, after 20 years of living abroad all over the world, I bought an 1800s farmhouse in my hometown in rural Pennsylvania. Lookout, deer, here I come! 🦌
• The farmhouse came with a cute-ass little guest cottage 🏡
• And I am having a BLAST renovating them both from scratch 🛠️
• …Even though two years ago I didn’t even know how to mow the lawn 🤷‍♀️

So, how did water almost ruin my life?

Because there are sections of these floors that are…………….GONE. And, by “gone” I mean the kind of floor where, one step to the left in a decent pair of heels and I’d surely fall through clutching my zellige tiles, screaming, “NOT THE GROUT, ANYTHING BUT THE GROUT.”

Why?

Because moisture, over time, rots the hell out of your floor joists. And your beams, for that matter. And your resolve.

Signs your floor is going to eat you alive 👹, AKA it’s rotten wood:

• Your floor is bouncy, bouncy, squish! This thing should not be bouncy. (Nope, not even then, pervert.)
• Your dresser drawers mysteriously open ALL THE TIME. That’s probably because your floor is sagging and therefore your dresser is tipping toward the middle. FUN! (Duck taping them shut works, but your mental sanity WILL be at risk.)
• Your bathroom door doesn’t shut and you want to scream. Because the floor is doing wonky things, so now your doors are out of level. (And, yeah, this can be *any* door. But I like picture you pooping, so.)
• Your baseboards have gaps big enough to smuggle Doritos. That’s not “charm,” that’s your floor pulling away from the walls like it’s filing for divorce.
• And THE star of this show: musty smell. If your space smells like a high school locker room, water’s definitely moved in.

These are all signs that, yup, moisture has probably been hangin’ around your house.

And, it might not be bad now, but eventually, it will need HELP.

That’s where I found myself with the cottage.

The cottage, cute as it is, had big problems with one thing: the master bedroom floor. The master bedroom, you see, was different from the rest of the house: it didn’t sit on top of the basement.

The master bedroom was an addition onto the cottage, a very long time ago.

As such, the master bedroom sat on top of…….a dirt floor.

And dirt floors?

Dirt floors are basically an all-inclusive resort for moisture. No concrete, no vapor barrier, no protection—just damp earth rising up like, “hi, can I ruin your house today?”

It’s like putting your hardwood floor directly on top of a compost pile. Every ounce of humidity, every puddle, every rainy season—it all just hangs out under there, marinating your joists until they’re soft enough to cut with a butter knife.

So while the rest of the cottage was chillin’ on top of a nice dry basement, the master bedroom was basically resting on a bog. A bog that wanted me dead.

Fast forward to earlier this summer when I decided it was time to do something about it. Fortunately, I have so many contractor friends from high school, and they have all been SO patient with me, because I have basically become their dress-wearing apprentice—and we decided to tackle the hell out of this floor.

Boy, did I not know what I was getting myself into.

We started with one of my favorite, must-have tools for new homeowners: The Sawz-all.

I’m a Ryobi homie, through and through, because they’re battery-operated and cute and user-friendly. So here’s me with my battery-operated sawz-all, which is basically like a mechanical bread knife on steroids. You use it to cut through almost anything: wood, metal, drywall, nails, tree branches. Contractors call it a “demo saw.” And it is, by far, one of my MOST used tools in the whole house.

And it is then that we are to begin by CUTTING THROUGH THE LITERAL, ACTUAL FLOOR.

So I post up.

With my cute little saw.

And my cute little hands.

And, I go for it. I give it a good college try!

That’s when it happens.

Big mistake #752 that I’ve made since buying this property (and had to learn the hard way):

I cut through a live electrical wire.

Sparks fly! 💥

“Drop the saw!”

I fall backward.

And I quickly learn that electricians deserve more money than I do.

Over the course of the next 5 days, I learn more about floor joists—and floors—than anyone who majored in Communications should reasonably be expected to know.

• We do, in fact, rip up the wooden floor. (I use my hands a lot, lol.)
• This is when it’s discovered that there’s no sub-floor. (This is usually thick plywood that goes underneath your actual floor.)
• So, that old wooden flooring was just literally hanging out there naked and exposed to the dirt floor. (Which is why I couldn’t believe that was it? Nothing else? Is this really how houses were built back then?)
• This is when we see the (now infamous) floor joists. Originally we thought we could just marry new joists to the old ones, but—surprise!—those floor joists were so rotted, they just fell to powder.
• So, we *took out* ALL OF THE OLD FLOOR JOISTS. Which pretty much consisted of me karate chopping them in half, and then dragging them out the door.
• And, we went to the hardware store. And we bought all new pressure-treated lumber to turn into new floor joists. Pressure-treated lumber is YOUR NEW BEST FRIEND. It’s basically wood that’s been dipped in a chemical bath and given a tiny suit of armor. It resists rot, bugs, and moisture way better than regular lumber, which means it won’t disintegrate into soggy Corn Flakes the first time water looks at it funny.
• And then we cut allllllll of the lumber to fit. (Hello, circular saw!) These new floor joists sit on top of the beams that line the perimeter of the room. (Technically a sill plate, but who’s counting?)
• Here’s the thing I learned about this: joists are supposed to sit every 16 inches apart. My original joists? Were sitting something like 24 inches apart. Which means that not only were they soggy (and about 100 years old): they weren’t doing a very good job of holding up the floor. The bigger the gap, the more your floor turns into a sad trampoline. 😿
• BUT—before we put our new joists in, we also installed a vapor barrier on top of the dirt, which is like a giant condom for your house—keeps the moisture out, keeps the structure safe, and yes, it’s just as awkward to wrestle into place.
• Then, we put gravel on top of the vapor barrier to hold it in place.
• Then, after getting all of the floor joists in, we reinforced them all with short pieces of lumber installed perpendicular between joists to stiffen them, spread loads, and keep them from twisting or wobbling. (Americans call this “blocking.” But I recently read that the Brits? Call it “nogging.” Which somehow sounds suggestive.)
• THEN, we proceed to do something *extra* fun: we measured big sheets of 1” foam insulation, which must be *cut perfectly to size and inserted perfectly in between the joist cavities*. Too big, and it won’t go in. Too small, and it’ll just fall through the hole. WHAT A MIND PUNCH OF A TREAT THIS WAS. At least twice I threw a hissy fit. It’s like trying to parallel park a mattress.
• Once all of that was done, it was time to get to work installing the plywood subfloor on top of the joists. So many things! So much to measure! But, fun fact: by installing thicker 3/4” plywood than is code, I was damn determined to never have a bouncy floor there EVER AGAIN, MUAHAHAHAHAHA.
• My job? Was drilling in all the screws. With an impact gun. Which is like a badass drill. And, my god am I good at this task! Except for the last two screws. The LAST TWO SCREWS. When I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong, and got frustrated, because for some reason they * would * not * go * in *. I’m sweating, swearing, blaming the lumber. And then I realize: I had the damn thing in reverse.

End result though?

I have a brand-new floor! (Once I figured out, you know, power tools.)

But, you know what the best part about it is?

I learned something brilliant and useful and interesting and new. And, what more invigorating thing is there in this world, than realizing that you are still so naive, in so many ways?

Being naive is a beautiful thing.

It means you are not too worn, too jaded, too calcified by knowing everything. You’re still flexible. Still open. Still willing to look stupid in exchange for growth.

Because the opposite of naive isn’t “wise.” It’s finished.

And I don’t know about you, but I plan to be under construction for a very, very long time. 🚧

So may your floors never sag, may your grout stay white, and may water—your new (favorite) mortal enemy—forever find someone else’s joists to rot.

Because water may keep you alive, but it will happily murder your house while you sleep.