I am doing a small remodel on a 3rd floor condo that had carpet and the owner wants hardwood floors installed. The entire floor has been floated and has some cracks. Can I do a nail down through the floated floor? I was able to run a sheetrock screw through it without any problem. Or should I do a gluedown application? Did a gluedown with bamboo on a slab and would prefer to not have to mess with the glue again.
Discussion Forum
Discussion Forum
Up Next
Video Shorts
Featured Story
With the right approach, you can restore old hardware—whether through soaking, scrubbing, or polishing—giving it a fresh look while preserving its original charm.
Highlights
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Fine Homebuilding Magazine
Fine Home Building
Follow
-
Fine Homebuilding
Dig into cutting-edge approaches and decades of proven solutions with total access to our experts and tradespeople.
Start Free Trial Now -
GBA Prime
Get instant access to the latest developments in green building, research, and reports from the field.
Start Free Trial Now
Replies
Just to make sure we're on the same wavelength, can you confirm this will be full-thickness t&g hardwood strip flooring? Also if it's pre-finished or mill-run?
A fair amount of the decision will hang on what was used to level the floor, and how thick the stuff is. If you could run a Piffin screw through it, it's likely pretty thin and there's little chance a pneumatic flooring nailer or stapler would have trouble going through it...but the chances a thin layer of SLC (which is what I'd guess was probably used) will fracture at each penetration and turn into cookie crumbs under the new hardwood strike me as pretty high.
That could lead to all sorts of problems....
You might be best advised to bust that stuff outta there and go wood-to-wood.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not brought
low by this? For thine evil pales before that which
foolish men call Justice....
He is looking at full thickness, pre-finished T&G. Something was dropped on the floor at some point and did crack whatever is covering the floor. I really don't know what the floor was floated with. The condo is currently carpeted and we are pulling the carpeting out.The owner has moved from this condo into a house and has not decided whether he wants to rent or sell the condo. The flooring options are still pretty open and if I go to a glue application, I'll probably look at engineered flooring
I would be hesitant to nail strip flooring on top of SLC. If I had to do this job without removing the stuff, I would lay 1x sleepers on 12" centers using PL Premium and screws, laying the sleepers over the floor joists and using screws long enough to get through into them. Then I'd staple the strip flooring to the sleepers using shortish staples that won't punch through the sleepers and fracture the SLC.
The hard parts will be (a) locating the joists, and (b) finding a yard that sells KD 1x spruce that's not PT (which I would never use inside a dwelling).
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....