Anyone have wood floor experience?

[okie archer]

Need to remodel our house. Thinking about pulling out all the carpet and installing wood floor to cut down on dust allergies.
Here's the problem. The foundation has a crack down the middle of floor and I'm not spending the $50k to repair it.
The crack may be close to an inch higher on one side in some places. If you try you can feel it through the carpet with your foot.
Thinking about laying down 4x8 sheets of 1/2" plywood as a subfloor. Then staggering 1x10 pine for my surface wood. Should I just lay the subfloor and not fasten it down? Then fasten the 1x10's?
Thoughts?

 

[Elktrack]

Have you considered grinding it down?
I deal with this from time to time with concrete floors. Grind down the bad high spots and then float the low spots.

 

[COEngineer]

I have no expertise, but Youtube does:

Self-leveling compound makes sense to me.

 

[squirrel]

Dont overlook self-levelling floor mix for low spots. Possibly grind the high pour the low??? Personally Id rather pour more, or give the grinder to the mrs while I go look for deer sign upwind. Unless you use the new fake wood you are going to need nailers anyway so you can level them as you lay them.

 

[Gr8bawana]

Will the crack keep growing after you lay whatever flooring you decide on?

 

[Birddog916]

I just dealt with this about a year ago. Our old Victorian has saggin' walls and floors like you'd expect in a 1890's redwood studded home. Our upstairs had more than 2 inches slope over about 20'. I used a combination of sanding the old floor's high spots and laying down thin plywood and floor leveler in the low spots to get it level enough. There is level then there is level enough...to nail down the wood.

 

[CRJR45]

I agree with the grinding and self leveling cement . If you do use the self leveler , make sure to use a clean bucket each time you mix a bag , or it will flash early and be a mess .
Also you mean wood floor installed and sanded down ? Or a floating snap together simulated wood ?
I've had both and prefer the LVL , or luxury Vinyl Plank , like CoreTec . Dont use the box store stuff , it's cheap.
Also LVL is much more forgiving as far as having the floor exactly level . It will float over the small holes , like where the carpet tack strips pop the cement coming up , ETC

PS look around , try to find a discontinued color a dealer has in stock , I find some great deals .

 

[CRJR45]

Here’s a picture of my mud room , a 70 lb dog living here and zero scratches.

 

[BigHornRam]

Need to remodel our house. Thinking about pulling out all the carpet and installing wood floor to cut down on dust allergies.
Here's the problem. The foundation has a crack down the middle of floor and I'm not spending the $50k to repair it.
The crack may be close to an inch higher on one side in some places. If you try you can feel it through the carpet with your foot.
Thinking about laying down 4x8 sheets of 1/2" plywood as a subfloor. Then staggering 1x10 pine for my surface wood. Should I just lay the subfloor and not fasten it down? Then fasten the 1x10's?
Thoughts?

If you are going to lay plywood on concrete, make it treated plywood. I've seen worse in the Bitterroot!

 

[Nunyacreek]

I’ve put down a lot of wood floor over concrete. In my house I put down 6mil visqueen then 3/4” OSB T & G subfloor. The subfloor has a few concrete nails around the edge to hold it and then the wood plank is nailed to it and holds it all together. You could shim the low side of the crack but other than that I wouldn’t worry about it. With an inch and a half of wood spanning any voids or cracks you won’t feel or notice them. It’s worked for me for 15 years and never any problems.

 

[okie archer]

Will the crack keep growing after you lay whatever flooring you decide on?

I don't think so, it hasn't changed much in the 13 years we've lived here. I had the foundation piered on one corner then .

 

[okie archer]

I agree with the grinding and self leveling cement . If you do use the self leveler , make sure to use a clean bucket each time you mix a bag , or it will flash early and be a mess .
Also you mean wood floor installed and sanded down ? Or a floating snap together simulated wood ?
I've had both and prefer the LVL , or luxury Vinyl Plank , like CoreTec . Dont use the box store stuff , it's cheap.
Also LVL is much more forgiving as far as having the floor exactly level . It will float over the small holes , like where the carpet tack strips pop the cement coming up , ETC

PS look around , try to find a discontinued color a dealer has in stock , I find some great deals .

Not planned on using floating snap floor. I had in mind to use real wood in 1x10 pine.

 

[sclancy27]

As someone said above, I would trend toward a vinyl plank floor instead of wood. They are a true floating floor and will be much more forgiving of underlayment "undulations" or not being level than a wood floor. They also look pretty nice and installation is much easier.

 

[PRO MO]

floating click together LVP, or rigid core will fail if you don't lay them over a completely flat subfloor - 1/8" in 8' is the typical standard that they will allow for, which even without cracks is tough to get with concrete.
cover the crack with tape, self level the floor (like in @COEngineer's video posted earlier) then prime it and full spread glue the wood down after. If you don't want to full spread glue, you could T&G glue the wood together for a floating floor, but there's still alot more potential for issue if you do that.
don't lay plywood underlayment over concrete, and especially don't loose lay plywood.

 

[jrabq]

I installed an "engineered" wood floor (not plastic, a real wood laminate) over a not so perfect wood floor. It was tongue and groove, glued together, floating, with a thin foam underlayer. Very glad I went with the glue and floated it, vs nailing it down.

Knotty pine.

 

[seeth07]

with a thin foam underlayer.

This will be a key component to laying down a new floor over concrete. Don't forget the foam layer!

 

[44hunter45]

When I was younger I had a lot of wood floor experience. Nothing like getting smacked in the face by a honky tonk floor covered in sawdust and stale beer. Nothing about those times sounds fun in the slightest anymore.

 

[PRO MO]

also, regarding allergies - IMO carpet keeps the allergens on the floor ready to be vacuumed a lot better than hard surface. We had no carpet in my last house and dog hair and dust were always getting blown around by everything. Either way, regular vacuuming is key for allergies.

 

[okie archer]

I installed an "engineered" wood floor (not plastic, a real wood laminate) over a not so perfect wood floor. It was tongue and groove, glued together, floating, with a thin foam underlayer. Very glad I went with the glue and floated it, vs nailing it down.

Knotty pine.

View attachment 377596

I visited a floor covering business today and checked out some of the "engineered" wood flooring. Seems to be a great option.

 

[jrabq]

I visited a floor covering business today and checked out some of the "engineered" wood flooring. Seems to be a great option.

The great thing is the engineered stuff is absolutely straight and square. I was very close to using real wood and buying or renting a nail gun, and wrestling with the imperfections. Found this stuff more or less by accident, very happy with the results. Installing it was relatively easy, just a lot of time on hands and knees.