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Hardwoods on Linoleum

9 years ago

Hey guys! I'm currently in the process of pulling up the floors throughout our entire ground floor and in certain areas there's multiple layers of linoleum glued on top of one another. It's an awful mess. The ground floor is on slab, and we would like to put hardwoods down, but the linoleum will not budge. Would anyone suggest laying hardwoods on the linoleum? If not, then does anyone have a suggestion for removing linoleum? Thanks in advance for your help!

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Comments (7)

glennsfc
9 years ago
What hardwood product do you want to use and what will be your preferred installation method?
firstpost
Original Author
9 years ago
Currently, we plan on gluing pre-finished engineered wood flooring to the linoleum. The house is 38 years old, and the lino looks to be permanently adhered. But again, we are open to suggestions if this is not the direction we should take. Thanks again.
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glennsfc
9 years ago
Of course my next question is "what kind of linoleum?" My assumption is that the sheet material is a vinyl on a mineral fiber felt backing.

If the sheet material is securely bonded to the concrete in all areas, then you can think of the sheet as providing a vapor retarder for your installation. Your sheet flooring will either by an homogenous vinyl or a cushioned rotogravure product. Either can provide an adequate substrate, but check with the flooring manufacturer as to suitability and for adhesive recommendation.

If you choose to install over the sheet material, then be aware that you must physically and chemically remove any surface contaminants, and that includes any acrylic dressings or waxes that may have been applied to the flooring surface. Once you are sure they have been removed and you have a clean and dry substrate, then I see little reason why going over the existing sheet material cannot be done. It is how I did such installations over the years and they were all successful.
firstpost
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks Glenn. You are correct, it is sheet lino but we can't really tell if it's felt backed. Because of the age, it is very brittle, so we are only able to remove very small pieces before it crumbles. Also, the lino is covered with some grey leveling agent that is preventing the vinyl from easy removal. I believe the grey stuff is the root of the problem, I probably should have started with that. They used a lot of it and it is gross, but it does make the lino level. I'm thinking it might just be better to get down to the concrete and start from scratch. I'm afraid it's going to be a long weekend.
glennsfc
9 years ago
If you remove it, then you will have to flatten any areas that are not flat to within the flooring manufacturer's guidelines. You cannot ignore the flat rule.
rantontoo
9 years ago
If you take out the layers to bare concrete...best to make sure about asbestos before you tackle full removal.
Laurie
9 years ago
Dh left the sheet vinyl (which was firmly adheared to the concrete)
on our glue down install of engineered hardwood. It's been almost 6 years, and no problems.

As glenn said, we stripped the vinyl with some sort of stripper/cleanser bought at a local hardware store before the gluing process.

Because the vinyl was not in the entire room (only the eating/table area), Dh had to use some sort of gray agent to feather from the edge of the vinyl to the concrete to gradually ramp the ledge.

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