We have just moved into a circa 1975 house near Annapolis. MD. The first order of business is the tear out the truly nasty wall to wall carpet and replace with hardwood. We know we are going the prefinished route to keep the mess down and we can do all the work ourselves. Pneumatic floor nailers and staplers are available cheap on eBay and can be resold when we are done to avoid hefty rental fees. Lumber Liquidators has great selection and pricing.
The subfloor under the carpet appears to be ½â€ particle board over 5/8†CDX plywood over 2 X 10 joists @ 16†o.c. The floor feels very solid and appears flat. The question is do we go with 3/8†or ¾â€ strips? If ¾â€, then nails or staples? I’m assuming that whatever way we go, we should use nails or staples that will penetrate through to the plywood. I remember a recent article on strip flooring, but I don’t think it addressed the subfloor issue or fasteners. Any advice from the pros or experienced amateurs?
Replies
I'd recommend that you remove the particle board.
If the underlaying ply subfloor is in good shape, then use 3/4" hardwood flooring over that. Nails or staples? I've been leaning towards staples on engineered or prefinished flooring.
If the 5/8ths looks suspect, then I'd run a layer of half-inch ply as underlayment, screwing every 8" throughout the field. Then you could use flooring that is 3/8", 3/4", or any thickness in between.
Why would you recommend removing the particle board?
It doesn't hold fasteners (nails/staples) very well. Could end up with a noisy floor down the road. Particleboard is a good underlay for carpet, but it's not the best choice for use under wood flooring.
Again, you don't have to pull it...but if it were my house, or if I were doing the work...I would.
It all depends on what you're comfortable with.
I agree that the holding capacity of particle board isn't nearly as good as ply but there is another alternative to ripping it out and that is to use a bead of construction adhesive at 16' ctrs under the strip flooring.
IanDG
I agree with the others on ripping out the particle board. It will not hold fasteners the way that you want it to, and the amount of effort to rip out the particle board is small compared to how much effort putting down the strip flooring will be.
My wife and I did prefinished Husky hardwood for our ski house. You'll need to be careful not to crinkle the finish with the nailer or tools, but it's fairly easy to put down the flooring. We did staples.
I heartily recommend that you read this before you do this project. It was very helpful for us.
I just removed 500 sf of that *^#$@^& particle board. Gonne replace it 5/8" over the 1/2 inch subfloor. And I'm gonna put strip over that.
Whewwwwwww and this I dpo in my spare time.
tyke just another day in paradise
Another good reason is that if it ever gets damp it will turn to mush and your beautiful hardwood floor will sink and maybe even rot. Particle board makes great speaker cabinets when you're 16, other than that I wouldn't take it as a gift and I sure would never use it in a house.
wwilme, REMOVE THE PARTICLE BOARD, check the subfloor for squeeks and refasten with screws if needed ,not a bad idea to go over the whole floor IF the subfloor was not glued , if it was glued down then spot screwing will suffice.
Use the 3/4 solid wood (oak I presume) flooring, it can then be re-finished in 20 years or so, with a life span of 80-100 years or more, 3/8 is usually a laminte and can not be re-finished. A good quality pre-finished floor will give 15 to 20 years of service or possibly more ,depending on use.
You are aware that pre-finished floors all have a micro-bevel along their length on both edges?, this is needed because you will not be sanding them prior to finishing and there needs to be a way to "level" each piece in relation to the next piece laid down.
Geoff
I agree with all the others on removing the PBd.
if you do elect to keep it, you should just go with and engineered click fasten floating floor instead.
Lumber liquidators has terrible service and the materials quality can be a crap shoot.
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Is Advantec as problematic as particle board when applying a hardwood strip floor? The advantec is glued and stapled to the floor joists. Are staples or cleats better for 3/4" solid oak? Thanks