Thanks for the tips. It seems that many installation provisions
recomended boil down to a nail down type installation, either over a
plywood subfloor over concrete, or the use of screeds. However, what
about my orignal idea of actually "floating" it?

Here is what I did on my test room:

1) My house is over 5 years old and the concrete is dry as its ever
gonna be. It tested well.
2) I laid out a poly/foam vapor barrier over the entire space, with 12"
overlaps and is taped using 3m blue tape.
3) I glued each plank of the 3/4" solid wood flooring to its neighbor
via the tung and groove.
4) left a 1/2" space around the entire perimeter of the room.

Thats it. The floor is floating much like an engineered product would
be installed, but is a solid 3/4" plank floor (3" wide). The room has
been going good for over a year now. Has seen all the seasons.

Is this a crazy idea?

Swingman wrote:
wrote in message

I am interested in floating a solid hardwood plank floor (3/4" x 3").
Has anyone successfully done this?

Absolutely ... around here (Gulf Coast) hardwood floors are routinely
installed on concrete slab foundations thusly:

The concrete floor is first sealed with a layer of hot tar.

1" - 1 1/2" "screeds" (ripped SYP 2 x 4's are commonly used) are then placed
on top of the tar about 12", or less, apart.

The hardwood floor planks are then laid perpendicular to the screeds and
nailed to them, leaving approximately 1/2" - 3/4" room for expansion along
all walls.

The expansion gap is then covered partially by the baseboard and completely
by the shoe molding.

Hardwood floors done in this manner on concrete slabs generally survive
better in this climate than hardwood floors laid on the subfloor of a
crawlspace foundation.

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Last update: 12/19/06