Atelier is right on the money as far as moisture testing is concerned and it is best to slab test on or right after high humidity and rainy days to get the worst-case-scenario test returns. The flooring system integrity will only be as good as it is in its worst day in the enviroment its installed in. After you get test results and compare them to the manufacturers product tolerances, then you can decide on the right product for that application or other remedies to bring it to withing manufacturer tolerances. The key here is prevention. Guessing isnt knowing, and any preventative measures used by guessing might be overkill OR might not be enough for the product. You just dont know without testing and in some cases an area will never be good enough for some products without rectifying the underlying construction causing the problem. Yes, some adhesives and substrate treatments will add a water vapor barrier and stop or stem hydrostatic pressure in the substrate but they all have cap limits. Owens Wood Flooring has a comptehensive information section of their site on Owens Plankfloor Gluedown Installation Owens states the following: "MAKE CERTAIN BUILDING INTERIOR AND SUBFLOOR ARE DRY Interior walls should be dry enough to be painted and a room temperature as required by adhesive manufacturer with a relative humidity of 30-50% should be provided before any installation begins. To determine if a concrete slab is suitable for hardwood flooring, please follow the NWFA guidelines to perform a Calcium Chloride test. If excessive moisture is present, do not lay flooring. Check floor in several locations. Concrete sub floors must be clean, flat and sound and of sufficient compression strength (3000lbs PSI) being sure that the surface is not slick. Sections not flat such as waviness, trowel marks, etc. are to be eliminated by grinding or the use of an acceptable leveling compound. Especially along the walls, the sub floor flatness must be checked and, if necessary, improved. Flat to 1/8" in an 8 radius. In addition to concrete sub floors, these products can be installed over dry, flat wood sub floors, such as plywood. If plywood is used as an overlay over an existing sub floor, the thickness of the overlay material much be such as to yield a total ¾" sub floor thickness. New wood type sub floors should also be checked for moisture using a moisture meter. In general, wood or plywood sub floors should not exceed 12% moisture content or 4% moisture content difference between wood flooring and sub floor." The NWFA is a resource you can only get information from if you are a paying member, so you might want to search around for the same information on calcium chloride tests from a independent source if you or your installer isnt a member. It should be noted that there are different types of moisture testing. 1. Relative Humidity of the Installation Area. 2. Moisture in the substrate itself hydrostatic Pressure. 3. Moisture testing the wood looring itself before the install to ensure its equalized to the within-tolerance installation area humidity. Here is some more information you may find useful: moisture testing hardwood flooring moisture testing for relative humidity in a room hydrostatic pressure in concrete ASTM F2170 ASTM F1869 your installer should be well educated in all of the above. ask them plenty of questions and get a good comfort level in their abilities. ask for and check out their references too.

Both purchased at Floor and Decor Outlet, but the wood was special order from this company: http://www.urbanfloor.com/Maple-Natural.html The installation instructions for the wood floor don't mention a glue with pad method. I'm thinking it's more of an option to think about for sound transfer to a lower living area, but I'm on slab on grade. Here are the instructions: http://www.urbanfloor.com/downloads/urbanfloor_installation2011_web.pdf Here is the pad: http://www.flooranddecoroutlets.com/s54200049.html "Eco Ultra Quiet Premium Acoustical Underlayment"

I'm going to guess this was a contact cement application. This is a super difficult form of adhesion. You butter the subfloor and then butter the back of the tile. You let both flash, or dry, before laying the tile. The problem is once the two glued surfaces touch, they are DONE. There is no moving them. None. Nada. Nyet. Nix. Not a millimeter of movement. The other fun thing about contact cement application requires a SUPER steady hand. And the tiles need to be SUPER straight. And the SUBFLOOR needs to be very, very, very flat. Any form of deflection (ripples, etc) will change the shape of the tile. You change the shape of the tile and you change the EDGE of the tile. Even if the tiles are PRECISELY cut, a wonky subfloor will cause issues with the edges...even if the installer is a MASTER installer...they can't get tiles to lay properly if the subfloor isn't dealt with properly. How much subfloor prep did you pay for? Was it $0.50/sf or was it closer to $3.00/sf? If this floor needs to be reinstalled (either at your insistence or because the installation was inappropriate) you will loose all the tiles. They are unsalvageable. New product must be sourced and ordered. Please find out how much subfloor preparation was done. It is the most important thing in a situation like this.

Below are some of the Medieval Floors Nouvelle Collection Sand Dune engineering hardwood floors that I got from my installer. It's basically a nice natural wood color. The light does make a big different in the house though so you have to get a box to make sure. He said this is from a beautiful 6,000+ square feet home in Southern California and the customer stayed home to watch her installer installing the floors as she wants everything perfect. I would too if my house is THAT big and spending so much money already.