DIYbanter - View Single Post - Floating a 3/4" Solid Hardwood Floor Over Above Grade Concrete?

dpb

wrote:
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?
....

That's _ONE_ year for a flooring material that can last 200 or more --
not a very long time yet.

What I see as potential issues --

1. The tongue and groove of strip flooring aren't made to fit to a
close tolerance for a glue joint. You don't mention what you used as
the glue, but I would be quite surprised if you can find a way that
these joints will last for a long period of time w/o eventually failing
at the joint. Remember, this is potentially a multiple-lifetime
flooring material and you've seen the results of your experiment for
only _one_ year so far.

2. For a large floor, you don't have any way to prevent movement
between boards over time other than the above glue joint -- rarely (as
in never) have I seen strip flooring which didn't need at least some
persuasion when initially being laid to close the joints and for a
large area I think you'll run into problems of a very high
rejection/wastage rate if you require every piece to be absolutely true
its entire length in order to pull joints tight during the
installation. The supplier will not think these pieces out of spec as
they would work fine w/ recommended installation techniques so this
will raise cost.

3. You don't say, but I'm assuming you didn't finish four sides (top,
bottom, two ends -- sides obviously can't be if gluing). Thus, as w/ a
convential strip floor, you still have three of the four sides
available for moisture movement. Over one year, maybe you got by, over
a long-haul I don't expect you to be so lucky. Finishing the
bottom/ends might help a little, but finishes don't stop moisture,
transfer, they slow it down.

Overall, I think you're risking a pretty sizable investment on an
unproven method of installation when proven methods are available. If
it were something that would be relatively easy to fix later, I'd say
"sure, give it a shot", but once this is down in an entire house, _if_
it does fail, you've got a real mess on your hands plus quite an
expense. I'm w/ the other poster who suggested if you want a floating
floor, buy a product designed to be installed that way.

It's your house and your money, but I'm not that kind of a risk-taker.

IMO, YMMV, $0.02, etc., etc., etc., ...