Advice sought on re-laying floating hardwood floor with level change

Discussion in 'Carpenters' Talk' started by Surfmonkey, Feb 15, 2017.

  1. Surfmonkey

    Surfmonkey New Member

    Hello all. I'd be very grateful for some qualified (or unqualified but experienced) advice on the following. Apologies if it's too much info but figure better too much than not enough:

    Been asked to relay mother's floating solid oak floor and, if possible, deal with a level change from one room to the other two (of three) in question. The need arrises due to water damage to two rooms.

    Aware what a **** idea floating solid floors are, with 20 year's amateur carpentry teaching me how much wood moves. Advised it was a bad idea at the time but she went ahead anyway.

    Three rooms in question, from front to back of the property::

    Kitchen
    Existing floated hardwood (oak) floor, largely undamaged other than a few cupped boards in the internal doorway, with a 6-7mm drop at the doorway leading to;

    Hallway
    Water damaged, floated (almost literally) solid oak now cut out, leaving old bitumen parquet adhesive with embedded fibrous underlay on reasonably intact screed. Doorway leading to;

    Dining Room
    On same level as hallway. Old bitumen adhesive with embedded fibrous underlay on reasonably intact screed. One area opposite doorway had self-levelling compound poured straight onto adhesive to resolve a low spot, which is largely intact and only blown at the edges.

    Way I see it I've two options:

    1. Let in replacement boards at kitchen doorway to replace damaged material and maintain drop to hallway with a transition/threshold strip. Seal old adhesive with PVA then lay new underlay in hallway and dining room and re-lay what usable boards remain, feathering into newer boards for remaining area but with a continuous run through the two rooms.

    2. Raise level of hallway and dining room to allow continuous run through all three rooms. Would need to:

    - Seal old adhesive with PVA (bugger to remove the stuff)
    - Latex the hallway and dining room, adding 1-2mm
    - Lay ply (on PU adhesive?)
    - Then either, lay new underlay on top of ply and float the solid wood over that, or, use thicker ply and nail the floor down.

    Sorry, first post and it's an essay! Ideas gratefully received.

    ----------------------------

    For your entertainment, compounding the original decision to float solid wood, the muppet who did the work managed to:

    - Lay one room in the opposite direction (orientation of t&g) and at a visibly different angle to the other two rooms
    - Left <5mm expansion gap in most areas
    - Advise it was impractical to address the level change from kitchen to other two rooms so just fitted (badly) a crappy transition strip in the doorway
    - Also fitted a transition in doorway between other two rooms despite there being no level change
    - Didn't remove or seal old parquet bitumen adhesive from screed before laying older style fibrous underlay, now embedded into still tacky adhesive
    - Used more clips than I knew existed (fun day with wall scanner finding 'em all)
    - Flooded every groove with so much glue I'm not even sure it qualifies as 'floating' as a lot of it was glued to the underlay, which, is embedded in the old parquet adhesive.
     
  2. wiggy

    wiggy Screwfix Select

    How much of the original oak flooring will need replacing?
    Whats the total area?
     
  3. Surfmonkey

    Surfmonkey New Member

    Dining room: 10.23m2, rectangular in plan. Hallway: 6.87m2, u-shaped around central stair. Total area = 17.10m2.
    Hoping I've enough good boards to do the hallway.
     
  4. wiggy

    wiggy Screwfix Select

    what about the kitchen
     
  5. Surfmonkey

    Surfmonkey New Member

    7.6m2, but planning to leave that alone, other than cutting out around 0.5m2 of knackered boards at the doorway, or 1m2 if raising the hallway for continuous run.
     
  6. wiggy

    wiggy Screwfix Select

    So with the old flooring up what is the height difference between kitchen and hall
     
  7. Surfmonkey

    Surfmonkey New Member

    31-32mm from top of boards in kitchen to screed in hall. Boards are 18mm, underlay is 5mm. Level change between the two areas is around 8-10mm (contrary to my original post of 6-7mm).
     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2017
  8. wiggy

    wiggy Screwfix Select

    12mm ply glued to sub floor, 18mm oak floor glued to ply.
     
  9. Surfmonkey

    Surfmonkey New Member

    Great, thanks. Is that likely to be noisier than floating it over the underlay? It's one of her (many) concerns.
    And any recommendations on glue for laying the ply on the subfloor after levelling?
     
  10. wiggy

    wiggy Screwfix Select

    You could go 6mm ply, 5mm underlay, 18mm floated floor.
    You just need to get as close to your kitchen floor level.
    I think gluing on 12mm will give a more solid feel.
     
    Surfmonkey likes this.
  11. Surfmonkey

    Surfmonkey New Member

    Apologies for not responding sooner and thanks very much for the advice.

    Away for a few weeks and got called to say screed was breaking up around edges of hallway. Seems previous owner had new rads installed and had simply chased out screed and underlying slab then run pipes directly in contact with the concrete: four compression joints (no soldered joints), no insulation or wrap, no sand under or around pipes and no marking. Thankfully, infilled screed was like honeycomb so came out without damage. Now chiseled more clearance around pipes, wrapped in poly/hessian, encased in sand and covered over with weak (but well mixed) screed that was covered and regularly damped to slow the cure.

    After all that I'm wondering if it would just be better to raise the level with a deeper pour of levelling compound. Something like Arditex NA looks to be tolerant of bitumen residue and could give the depth I need without any aggregate. Any experience of that product, or alternatives that might work?
     

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