Found a weird trick for leveling washing machines on uneven basement floors

I had this job last month at a place in north Minneapolis where the basement floor was sloped like crazy. Old house from 1910, everything was settled. This top-loader Samsung was bouncing around so bad during spin cycle I thought it was gonna walk right into the wall. I tried shimming it three different ways with those standard plastic wedges and it still wobbled. Finally I got frustrated and grabbed a scrap piece of rubber horse stall mat I had in my truck, cut it to fit the feet, and wedged a folded strip of it under the low side. Thing ran smooth as butter after that, no shaking at all. The rubber grips way better than plastic ever does and it compresses just enough. Has anyone else tried using something besides those cheap shims for a tough leveling job?

2 comments

2 Comments

gibson.oliver1mo ago

I gotta respectfully disagree with that rubber mat idea. I tried something similar with a stall mat once and it just compressed unevenly over a few weeks, then the machine started wobbling again. Those plastic shims might be cheap but at least they don't squish down and change the level over time. If your floor is that sloped you'd be better off building a proper plywood base that's cut to match the slope, then leveling the machine on top of that. The rubber works short term but it's not a permanent fix.

campbell.robin1mo ago

Stall mats are garbage for leveling, learned that the hard way too.