Installing a washing machine on a wooden floor

installing a washing machine on a wooden floor If the room where the automatic washing machine is supposed to be installed has a flat concrete floor, then no problems will arise. You just need to check the position of the washing machine body with a level, adjust it by tightening the legs, and you can connect the device to communications with a clear conscience. But how to install a washing machine on a wooden floor, which has also seen some wear?

You'll have to think about it here. You can’t let everything take its course, because vibration not only breaks your floor and ruins your nerves, it also gradually damages the washing machine, and this is already a problem. We will talk about the features of installing a washing machine on a wooden floor within the framework of this publication.

Errors when installing the washing machine

Vibration is a destructive force that affects a front-loading washing machine, gradually leading to wear and tear of its critical parts and their breakdown. If the vibration is partially damped due to the fact that the “home assistant” is installed level on a solid monolithic surface, then its service life will approximately double. If you place a washing machine in a house with a shaky wooden floor, and even place it haphazardly, it will not only vibrate and sway, it will start jumping on the floor.

When attempting to somehow dampen the vibration of a washing machine installed on a wooden floor, users make mistakes, which then also lead to the washing machine breaking down prematurely. Let's look at these typical mistakes so that our readers never repeat them in the future.

Before installing the washing machine on a plank wooden floor, some users place a thick anti-vibration mat. This measure will not dampen vibration, but it will be less transmitted to surrounding objects and the sound it produces will also partially go away.

The problem is that the rubber mat does not protect the washing machine from the damaging effects of vibration, and it will still break quickly. Although, of course, it will seem that the problem has been solved.

The second mistake involves trying to reinforce the floor with angles or metal pipes. In order not to bother too much, users mark a place on the floor where the washing machine will stand. Then, in the places where the legs of the washing machine are supposed to be placed, four holes are drilled directly in the boards, through these holes metal pipes or corners are driven into the ground under the floor, a piece of thick chipboard is thrown onto them, on which the washing machine is placed. As a result, the supports quickly become loose and after 2-3 months the problem returns.
Some users, in an attempt to create a solid and reliable base under the washing machine without any problems, place a piece of concrete slab weighing up to 150 kilograms directly on the wooden floor. In this case, they rightly believe that a hard and heavy plate will dampen vibration, which will create favorable conditions for operating the washing machine. Everything would be fine, but in this case such heaviness will lead to deformation of the floor and its swaying during operation of the machine, and besides, in order for the plate to effectively dampen vibration, the support area must be no less than 2 m².
Other home-grown craftsmen try to attach the legs of the washing machine directly to the floor boards, after first twisting their base and attaching metal plates to the threads. These plates have holes through which people, without much difficulty and without thinking, screw the legs to the floor with wood screws. What happens after this? Nothing good, during the spin cycle the washer sways and bounces so much that some boards simply come off, and the floor makes a terrible crack and rumble.

plank floor

In general, users allow themselves a lot of eccentricities when attempting to install the washing machine on a wooden floor themselves. As a result, nothing works out for them, which subsequently leads to problems. And what’s most interesting is that most of them figure out how best to remodel a section of the floor so that it is more suitable for installing a washing machine, but the problem is that they are too lazy to calluse their hands.

Concrete screed

Installing a washing machine on a wooden floor is almost impossible without installing a concrete screed underneath. Some experts think so, and not without reason. It is the concrete screed that will provide a reliable platform even for “the most zealous” washing machine. We will not be so categorical about the judgment that this is the only way to properly install a washing machine on a wooden floor, but we will not refute the fact that this is a good way. How to make a concrete screed in a house under a wooden floor?

We determine the exact location of the washing machine on the floor, after which we make marks on the floor and on the wall.

We mark out the space for the future concrete platform with a margin of several tens of centimeters, so that later during operation the edges of the platform do not collapse.

Carefully tear off the boards.
Along the edges of the future concrete platform we place wooden formwork from scraps of unnecessary boards or slabs.
If possible, weld reinforcement mesh for the platform to give it additional strength.
Pour in the pre-prepared solution, level and compact it.
We place additional logs along the edges of the platform so that the boards do not hang in the air.
Next, we need to wait until the solution hardens, then we need to return the boards to their place, not forgetting to screw them to the new joists. Then all that remains is to install the washing machine, connect it and enjoy.

On the pipes

Oddly enough, you can install a washing machine on a concrete slab, which will be laid on top of a plank floor, but there are nuances here. Firstly, you first need to concrete steel pipes under the floor, which will come out directly from the holes in the boards. The pipes must be installed strictly vertically; check this with a building level. We lay a massive concrete or marble slab weighing no less than 100 kg on top of the ends of the pipes.

The plate can be fixed to the pipes, or you can leave it as is, it won’t go anywhere. The point of this method is that the pipes must be long, driven deep into the ground under a wooden floor and concreted. Such a solid base will serve your washing machine well.

In conclusion, we note that if you have a wooden floor in your house, and an old one at that, you need to take all measures to strengthen the space under the washing machine. Installing the washing machine on a dilapidated and shaky base will lead to a decrease in its service life, additional noise and even a decrease in the quality of washing!