On May 12, 11:08 am, Marianne Halevi Marianne.Halevi.
wrote:
Lew Hodgett Wrote:



Marianne Halevi wrote:
-
Wow, what a bunch of good and useful information!-

The man has been to the movie.
-
I thank you all so
much. - Floor not level? O-oh! I never thought about that. -
Insulation? I was kind of trusting that I wouldn't need that, since I
live in Southern Cal. -

SoCal or not, insulation is a good thing to minimize sweating
problems.

BTW, what part of SoCal?

- Sleepers with shims? Sounds very good, but I-
think the level of the floor would then turn out higher than the
thresholds (I already have two doors installed with red brick steps
outside). -

It probably will, but you work around it.
-
But why use adhesive rather than
nails?-

Nails are metal, metal rusts, especially in a converted garage.

Lew

Aha! Rust! I guess that would go together with the sweating. The only
thing is, I am kind of paranoid about fumes. All this chemical stuff
that exudes potentially toxic vapors, but I think it's worthwhile to
check out where different adhesives fall in that respect.

I'd worry a LOT more about having to redo the whole job from the
ground up
because of adhesive failure than fumes in the garage for 24 hours,
assuming
you can actually buy solvent-based glues anywhere in CA. I've had
Liquid
Nails water-based subfloor glue fail between concrete and pressure-
treated
plates (you'll want CDX ply, essentially pressure-treated subfloor
plywood,
in that garage) and I'll neither use nor recommend it.

As for solvents, they're tested on white mice of a certain strain
in an effort to see how much is needed to make half of them sick
or die. Unless you're a mouse of a susceptible strain, don't worry.
Limit your exposure and crack the windows until the fumes are gone.
Or pay someone else to lay the subfloor.

Otherwise: Tapcon screws it will be (with lead anchors!), because
definitely my concrete is of a rather low quality - I have already seen
it disintegrating in some places and had to patch it.

These, I love and do recommend. Big, coarse, cement-eating threads.
No anchors needed.

Gosh, I've learned such a lot. Thanks again to all! - It's L.A. area,
BTW, San Fernando Valley.

What are your seismic codes? Would a floating subfloor be preferable?