putting a new hardwood floor into an old house
February 8, 2018 2:43 PM Subscribe
We want to hire someone to put in a hardwood floor in our dining room, and I have some questions. Such as: should we use solid planks or composite pre-finished ones? How do we choose the right contractor?
About the house: We just moved in a few months ago. It was built in the thirties and it's partially built into a hill. This means that the dining room is on the second floor, if you look at it from the street level, but it's on the ground floor relative to the backyard. And we've just discovered out that there's no concrete slab underneath the dining room. It's just wall-to-wall carpet glued to fiberboard, which is on top of old tiles, which are on top of sand.
Also relevant: we live in the Pacific Northwest, so it’s a damp climate. There is a veranda at the back of the house that has some moisture issues and it shares a wall with the dining room. That shared wall has small signs of water damage or water seepage.
We had two guys who specialize in hardwood flooring come and look at our place. Let’s call the first guy John. Let’s call the second guy Carl. We found John through Google; his store has apparently been running for 20 years. We found Carl because my husband knows several people who have had their floors done by Carl and they’ve all said he did a good job. My sense is that John is a salesman but isn’t going to be doing the actual flooring while Carl is the actual craftsman.
John suggested we use pre-finished composite planks (I think they’re called engineered planks?), because it would be less of a hassle for us. They would strip the carpet and the current fiberboard, put a protective layer over the existing tiles to keep the moisture out, and then use new fiberboard (and maybe a thin layer of cement, I think) to even out the floor. Then they’d lay the pre-finished planks down.
Carl said they could do something similar to what John was suggesting. But he was also willing to use solid planks. Which means removing the tiles in the dining room, removing some of the sand, laying down concrete and then a cement slab, sealing the wall that has moisture issues, then laying down the protective moisture layer and then laying the floor.
So, here are my questions: are there advantages to engineered planks other than the cost? Are there disadvantages to engineered planks? If we open up the floor and start digging are we going to be opening a huge can of worms (i.e. what’s the worst case scenario there)? Is John’s method, as described, cutting corners in a way that might bite us in the ass in a few years? I’m not excited about the possibility of digging up the floor, but I’d also prefer to get it done right the first time and not have to revisit it in a couple of years.
About the house: We just moved in a few months ago. It was built in the thirties and it's partially built into a hill. This means that the dining room is on the second floor, if you look at it from the street level, but it's on the ground floor relative to the backyard. And we've just discovered out that there's no concrete slab underneath the dining room. It's just wall-to-wall carpet glued to fiberboard, which is on top of old tiles, which are on top of sand.
Also relevant: we live in the Pacific Northwest, so it’s a damp climate. There is a veranda at the back of the house that has some moisture issues and it shares a wall with the dining room. That shared wall has small signs of water damage or water seepage.
We had two guys who specialize in hardwood flooring come and look at our place. Let’s call the first guy John. Let’s call the second guy Carl. We found John through Google; his store has apparently been running for 20 years. We found Carl because my husband knows several people who have had their floors done by Carl and they’ve all said he did a good job. My sense is that John is a salesman but isn’t going to be doing the actual flooring while Carl is the actual craftsman.
John suggested we use pre-finished composite planks (I think they’re called engineered planks?), because it would be less of a hassle for us. They would strip the carpet and the current fiberboard, put a protective layer over the existing tiles to keep the moisture out, and then use new fiberboard (and maybe a thin layer of cement, I think) to even out the floor. Then they’d lay the pre-finished planks down.
Carl said they could do something similar to what John was suggesting. But he was also willing to use solid planks. Which means removing the tiles in the dining room, removing some of the sand, laying down concrete and then a cement slab, sealing the wall that has moisture issues, then laying down the protective moisture layer and then laying the floor.
So, here are my questions: are there advantages to engineered planks other than the cost? Are there disadvantages to engineered planks? If we open up the floor and start digging are we going to be opening a huge can of worms (i.e. what’s the worst case scenario there)? Is John’s method, as described, cutting corners in a way that might bite us in the ass in a few years? I’m not excited about the possibility of digging up the floor, but I’d also prefer to get it done right the first time and not have to revisit it in a couple of years.
Best answer: The only potential downside to engineered flooring is that if you ever wanted to sand it down to get rid of damage at some future date, you can only do it once or twice, because of the depth of the top layer. The thickness of the top (finish) layer is a measure of quality with engineered flooring. So consider the kind of wear you'll subject the floor to. Advantages to engineered flooring include better dimensional stability, which in turn means your floor will stay flat and won't squeak or creak as much as the weather changes.
Carl is right. Your house needs some work on the foundations, whatever kind of wood you go for. The dampproof layer will protect your floor and your walls in the damp climate where you live.
posted by pipeski at 3:48 PM on February 8, 2018 [3 favorites]
Carl is right. Your house needs some work on the foundations, whatever kind of wood you go for. The dampproof layer will protect your floor and your walls in the damp climate where you live.
posted by pipeski at 3:48 PM on February 8, 2018 [3 favorites]
So your foundation situation sounds kind of crazy, hard to imagine not having a solid foundation.
But in general, it's not recommended to put solid hardwood directly on the slab because of changes in temperature and moisture issues. Assuming you eventually get a slab down there or something equivalent, it's like laying flooring in a basement and engineered products only are recommended there.
If we open up the floor and start digging are we going to be opening a huge can of worms (i.e. what’s the worst case scenario there)?
The worst case scenario is bottomless. Do you watch home reno shows on TV? Not doing it is probably just ignoring the problem.
I'd see about getting a foundation specialist to come in and evaluate your situation. It may eventually involve permits and inspections (which a straight floor replacement would not involve) so you better know what you're getting into.
posted by GuyZero at 4:04 PM on February 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
But in general, it's not recommended to put solid hardwood directly on the slab because of changes in temperature and moisture issues. Assuming you eventually get a slab down there or something equivalent, it's like laying flooring in a basement and engineered products only are recommended there.
If we open up the floor and start digging are we going to be opening a huge can of worms (i.e. what’s the worst case scenario there)?
The worst case scenario is bottomless. Do you watch home reno shows on TV? Not doing it is probably just ignoring the problem.
I'd see about getting a foundation specialist to come in and evaluate your situation. It may eventually involve permits and inspections (which a straight floor replacement would not involve) so you better know what you're getting into.
posted by GuyZero at 4:04 PM on February 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: About our foundation: it's concrete trenches under load-bearing walls. We knew this before, but somehow didn't remember that meant no concrete slab.
About the floor-laying: Carl was saying that they'd put down a protective moisture layer (some kind of sheeting that sounded like it was plastic but I'm not 100% sure), and then they'd lay down fiberboard, another layer that looks like unfinished parquet, and then the hardwood floor.
posted by colfax at 11:46 PM on February 8, 2018
About the floor-laying: Carl was saying that they'd put down a protective moisture layer (some kind of sheeting that sounded like it was plastic but I'm not 100% sure), and then they'd lay down fiberboard, another layer that looks like unfinished parquet, and then the hardwood floor.
posted by colfax at 11:46 PM on February 8, 2018
Best answer: Another perspective: Don't put a hardwood floor in there. Carl is right in terms of what needs to be done; you need at the very least to solve seepage from the wall, put down a pad (your foundation is nuts, I'd be shocked if that's up to any contemporary building code), and put in a real vapor barrier.
But after doing all that you're effectively throwing a sponge on it. Even engineered flooring is only water-resistant to a point, and usually only on the top. Water always wins, and you or someone else is going to be pulling up that floor and replacing it within a decade.
There's a reason they use all that tile in Italy and the Caribbean.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:25 AM on February 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
But after doing all that you're effectively throwing a sponge on it. Even engineered flooring is only water-resistant to a point, and usually only on the top. Water always wins, and you or someone else is going to be pulling up that floor and replacing it within a decade.
There's a reason they use all that tile in Italy and the Caribbean.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:25 AM on February 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
Also the finish on engineered planks is excellent. They use some kind of industrial process to make a very hard protective coating on the wood. Where hardwood will be some kind of sprayable or paintable protective coating.
posted by gregr at 2:59 PM on February 8, 2018 [1 favorite]