I bought a house made in 1948 with wood floors. There is a mushy spot under some vinyl flooring. How to fix?

I bought a house made in 1948 with wood floors. There is a mushy spot under some vinyl flooring that is right in fron of where the fridge is. I suspect there was some water damage from the earlier fridge before I bought the place. It's a pier and beam foundation, so I can get into the crawl space below. I looked around a little when installing the water for the ice maker in my new fridge. I did not see any water damage from below. How do I detect what the problem is and how should I go about fixing it?

Public Comments

1. You may be able to find the mushy spot by going underneath and having someone above helping you. Once you find it, it may be able to be fixed by reinforcing the floor with a piece of plywood and some deck screws. If the mushy spot is on the truss itself, that poses a new problem that cant be fixed from below. In this case, you will have to fix it from above. If you have vinyl tiles, it shouldn't be much of a problem. If you have sheet vinyl it will be a little more difficult. The biggest problem may be finding the tile or sheet vinyl that you will need to replace in the damaged spot. Some places where you can find exact tile are: In your basement, they may have thrown the scrap down there. Under your cabinets, alot of times if the vinyl is put down before the cabinets, there is scrap under there thats not attached. You may be able to find the tile or vinyl if you go to your local home center or flooring store. Your best bet, and probably will save you both time and money is to find a flooring installer to check it out for you.
2. The problem might not be water damage...I also bought an older house just simply pulled up the old laminate and placed knew because the laminate was simply stretching, there was no floor damage... try lookin under the laminate before you mess w/ your major items of your home like a beam.