Ok- I am redoing a kitchen in a house built in 1919. The orignal plan was to remove the current 12×12 vinyl tiles and the linoleum that is in place, and refinish the original maple floors. Unfortunately the lineolium tested positive for 20% asbestos. Abatement is way too much and the plan is to now cover it up and leave it in place. I was thinking of using engineered wood in the kitchen since I can’t have the real floors and a new 3/4 inch wood floor may be a bit pricey while creating a big height difference in floors.
So here is one question. Can I leave the floor (tile and linoleum) as is, put down an underlayment and install the flooring; possibly nailing into the floor if I need to? Or do I need to place a new sheet of subfloor down ontop of the existing vinyl/linoleum?
The second question is more design and character. Can I lay this wood floor perpindicular to the rest of the wood direction in the house? The kitchen is seperated from the dining room and living room by a doorway and wall, so can I run the length of the floor perpindicular to them? I was under the impression that you should keep the same flow/direction of length wood throughout the house?
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It's fairly normal to cover up old linoleum with just underlayment.
the lineolium tested positive for 20% asbestos. Abatement is way too much
Maybe you could educate me as to what this means. Is 20% some sort of threshold? Is this your own kitchen where you would have more choices as to what to do than if it were a customers? How much would abatement cost, any idea?
Any place where you can check to see how easily it will come up?
Quite possibly the underlayment that the tile is on will just pop up. A lot of times, that stuff was not glued down. Maybe even the linoleum if it's on a layer of underlayment, too. I've pulled up such floors almost whole. Bagged and disposed of. No tearing and absolutely no need to sand.
I don't see anything wrong with changing the direction of the flooring in a room with a doorway. My current house has several changes of directions and it looks just fine. Trying to keep the same direction can look ridiculous in come cases. For example we have two long halls that make an L. If one of them had the flooring in the same direction as the other it would just look weird when going down the hall with crosswise flooring.
Plus, the change of direction will help hide the fact that it will be nearly impossible to exactly match the floor color to existing.
Replace with engineered floor
In this situation I would lay in new engineered floor. It should run parallel to the long axis of the room. Depending on how vapor tight the existing linoleum floor is will determine if you need anything under the new flooring or can lie directly on the old floor. If the old floor is tight I would lay right over it, with possibly a layer of rosin paper first.
I prefer to staple down engineered wood floors, but not all brands or product lines have that option. And, if you don’t own the stapler, it might not be worth the cost of buying one.