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Installing carpet or wood flooring over existing wood floor

15 years ago

A couple of years ago we installed 3/4" solid wood floors over a plywood sub floor on the entire second floor of our home. Unfortunately the floors have separated and look terrible. It will be a tough and costly job to remove this flooring which was nailed down. Can we install a thinner wood flooring, say 3/8", over the existing flooring? Or would a better option be to cover all the existing flooring with carpeting? We don't have the funds to completely take out the old flooring and replace it again with 3/4" solid or engineered wood, so we are looking for a more cost effective way to correct our problem. Thank you for any suggestions.

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Comments (3)

boxers
15 years ago
use an engineered flooring that you can float you shouldn't have any problems. Thats assuming that this a flat solid surface. Why are they seperating? are you talking gaps between the boards or cupping?
kec01
15 years ago
If by separating you mean that there are 1/16 or 1/8" gaps between the boards, I wouldn't do anything. If you live in a climate where it gets warmer/hot and humid in the summer, the boards will absorb moisture and expand, closing the gaps.

I'd wait for the full weather cycle and see what happens.

I live in a 1918 house and we call those little gaps "character".
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I was thinking fire hazard as well. That doesn't really sound like it is up to current code either. I think the floor part of the problem is fineÃ¢ÂÂ¦you can lay another floor over it. But at this point with the wires etc. under there I would look at a floating click-installation wood floor. I would not be driving nails into a nest of electrical wires.
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jan2008
Original Author
15 years ago
Thank you for the input. By separating I mean 1/4 inch gaps in some places. A flooring inspector looked at the floors and said the problem is caused by a variety of reasons, improper milling, poor quality wood which was not completely dried at mill and not sufficiently acclimated in the house before installation. In some places the flooring is not completely level because the sub-flooring was not leveled properly before installing. The only good thing is that the floor is solid wood, 3/4 inch. Where the floor dips, is there a way to level this with extra sound proofing material before installing a floating wooden floor on top?

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