Getting ready to start some inside work and have a few questions. My current floor appears to be yellow pine t&g 21/2 ” w x 7/8 thick which is nailed directly to the joists, there is no sub floor under. The floor framing is 2×6 on 24″ ctr spanning about 10ft. Believe it or not ther is very little bounce to the floor (the house is 80 yrs old) . Would it be acceptable to nail down wood flooring on top of the existing floor as long as I secure any loose squeaky boards etc? Would I be better off using one of the floating laminate floors? I’d like to be able to throw down some t&g plywoood to stiffen everything up but I have issues with flooring thickness as the room I’m doing has a stairway. I don’t know whats considered acceptable but I wouldn’t think I’d want too much difference in the riser ht of the floor to first step and then subsequent steps.
For the walls I’m considering random width t&g pine run vertically. I figured on running 1x nailers horizontally which would also allow me to straighten the finish walls a little. I hadn’t considered this option when I had the electrician rough in my receptacles and switches. Will the boxes have to be moved to protrude more from the plane of the original stud wall or do electricians have a special fix for this? Sorry if this ones a no brainer but the only thing I know about electricity is to stay away form it. Thanks in advance
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You've got a lot of questions but seems like you've thought of some of the possible consequences. I suppose your floor doesn't have much bounce because those are old full dimension 2x6's out of strong wood. But it certainly is underbuilt by today's standards. Is it still pretty flat or does it sag in the middle?
Anyway, the stair issue is something to consider. Have you measured the riser height there and compared it to the rest of the stair yet, just to see if you would luck out? How thick is the flooring you are considering for this? As far as nailing down a wood floor over the top of what you have now goes, it is not an ideal installation but if you can live with small issues like squeeks, and maybe more gaps than normal and maybe some height considerations, I don't see why you couldn't do it. You'll want to put down a layer of roofing felt under it first.
I'm not a big fan of the floating floors but it may be a good thing for your case, if you like it well enough and don't have dog and kid issues (the stuff scratches pretty easily but then so does wood). There's no reason why it wouldn't work.
What are your electrical boxes, metal or plastic? Some of them can be extended, though you may be able to move them just as easily. But they cannot stay recessed the extra thickness you are adding to the wall plane.
Thanks for the reply. I'd like to use 1x for the floor. The stair risers are right on at 8". That would put my first riser at 7 1/4"+- and the rest at 8. Do you think thats acceptable or will people be tripping all over w/ that differential. Thanks for the advice on the boxes too, they're plastic. I'll either figure a way to move them out or go w/ athinner wall covering.
The stair issue would not meet code in new construction but with your situation, what I would do is lay down a sheet of plywood and something else to approximate whatever thickness flooring you'd like to use and have several different people walk up and down the stairs to see if it affected them, unless the first one does a cartwheel in which case I would stop the experiment right about then.
What are the stairs composed of?
I don't have a codebook handy but if I remember right, the NEC allows UP TO, I think, a quarter inch of the box not getting to the outside of the finished wall surface. Check this, because if that is the case, and you set your boxes for 1/2" drywall, you may not need to move them although you may want to anyway, wood being what it is (not fireproof). If you set the boxes for 5/8" drywall you may not have to move any of them.
Something to consider, anyway.