I removed the carpet in my upstairs bedroom and am looking to replace it with laminate. I have checked how flat the subfloor is and noticed a couple of dips. Both dips are on opposite walls about 1 1/2 feet in. Over the span of 5 feet from the wall to 5 feet into the room, I measure about a 1/4" dip. This is true for both dips. I'm concerned laying the laminate on these dips may cause issues. What exactly do I use for this? I've seen SLC elswhere on this site, which I assume is self-leveling compound. I can purchase this - however, do I need to worry about it leaking through any small cracks in the plywood (by cracks, I mean the gap between two plywood pieces)? Also, one other question. Some of the plywood boards don't line up evenly with one another, but they are less than 1/8" off.. Do I need to worry about this? Should I focus on sanding them? If so, what is recommended for smoothing this out? Thanks!

I hope I am asking this in the right forum! My husband and I bought a house in December. The lady had TONS of stuff all over the place (clean house, but knick-knacks and display cabinets everywhere, including the entryway which she did not use, I assume because the shrubs had grown so large they cover the sidewalk, so she used the carport door as her main entrance). Anyway, upon move-in we discovered that there was some water damage on the laminate floor in the entry way, that we missed when we were looking at the home the first time (inspector said nothing about it). It is along the wall that is shared with the bathroom- the tub (which we replaced last month) is right against that wall. We'd figured that we'd just replace the flooring when the time came. Well, the time has come. We've remodeled the rest of the room, and I went to pull up the floor just now, and discovered this: (The white stuff on the laminate floor is a combo of paint splatters and plaster dust, just ignore it) [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/whinny_ninny/002-2.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/whinny_ninny/004-1.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/whinny_ninny/006-2.jpg[/IMG] It looks like the floor was painted or primed before the laminate was put in. I do not know how to tell if there was mold prior to that that they'd painted over. Is this mold alive, or dead? There is NO moisture in the area whatsoever and there has not been since we moved in 2.5 months ago, so I'm assuming whatever issue that caused the moisture damage has been remedied. (According to the drywall in the bathroom, it was redone in late 1998 or thereabouts). What should I do about this? (We've already pumped $15,000 into this house to replace ugly panelled walls and cover popcorn ceilings and replace ugly-as-sin carpet)! We don't have a whole lot of cash left, or at least not until our other house sells...