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I’m tearing up a strip oak floor tomorrom (it has seen its last day; nails showing) and would like to leave the existing 3/4″ fir planking and lay new strip oak over it. Has anyone ever had any problem with this type of “operation”? I may be getting a little to fussy but wondered if the original nailing of the first floor would compromise the nailing of this new floor; pullout, movement and such. Any thoughts appreciated!! Make em fast too!
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Just finished one. Old 3/4 underlayment for linoleum was torn up. 3/4 fir t&g subfloor under that was laid diagonal to joists. Laid new oak strip floor over it.
The only problems were where the end of a diagonal landed short of a joist and "floated" a little. Either bridged these areas widely with no joints close by and/or added some bracing from crawlspace underneath. I did walk the subfloor first and screwed down any squeaky spots.
Edge nail through the tongues on normal centers (12-16"?) and into whever you land... subfloor only or subfloor + joist. I'd mark all the joist runs on the walls before you cover up so you know exactly where they are. (There was a post here a while back warning NOT to use a cahlkline on the hardwood floor, you'll never get rid of the stains). Then you can screw into the joists as needed (couter bore for a plug to hide the screw) to quiet any trouble spots.
*.......would agree with DScott, fix any subfloor problems before laying floor. Worked on a simular job 1 1/2 years ago. We layed a bead of construction adhesive (PL 200) under each strip. The floor is still tight and silent- no squeaks or squawks. The material sat 30 days in the room before it was installed to acclimate to the room temp and humidity. I think not allowing the flooring to acclimate to the climate in the room causes more than a few floor problems such as gaps,and squeaks.
*I know there's some difference of opinions on construction adhesive (a recent thread suggested that if you do good work your likely to be around long enough to re-do it so think ahead... for example this is not the first HW floor here) but asuming you think it's a good idea generally, is the effect negated by the "slip sheet" of red rosin paper or felt that's typically used under a HW floor?
*No, I don't normally use adhesive. In this case the rosin paper was eliminated. Any new floor is no better than what you lay it over. It wasn't my call (working for someone else at the time)......a new subfloor would have been nice (the existing subfloor dates from 1850's) but wasn't in the budget. I do think that in this case, the use of adhesive did the trick ....no squeaks. Normally, I don't use it.