Go for it. I would throw down some 3mm or 6mm cork underlay down (it floats just like the hardwood) and then float the hardwood. Use a high-quality joint glue on the hardwood and you should be fine. Besides...if it gives up the ghost in 10 years, would you be upset?

We have red oak floors covered with carpet in our living room in our 50 year old ranch. That room opens up to our dining/kitchen area which is sheet vinyl on a subfloor (placed over old vinyl.) We were wanting to do glued down engineered hardwood over the entire area and the hallway. The guy who measured said we could put a subfloor over the hardwood to bring it up to the level of the vinyl. Sounded easy. Now the installer says we need to remove all the old hardwood and vinyl and do new subfloor over all of it. Who is right? Is a floating installation an easier/better option?

I'm not sure what LVT is. :) I have an appointment with the flooring person for Saturday to test out samples. Cherie, we hate forced hot air because it bothers my and the kids' asthma and allergies so I am actually very happy about these baseboard radiators as radiant heat is much easier on the lungs since it's not blowing hot air all over the place. There is central air for the summer months. We live in Northern NH... it gets cold here for sure. I am going to keep the tile in the kitchen for now and the rest will be new flooring *all going in the same direction* ! We are ripping out the red carpeting, which is in all four bedrooms as well as on the stairs. We want to replace that with flooring and we don't want yet another type of flooring in the house so it makes sense to do the living and dining room as well. When we reconfigure the kitchen, we'll have to match it up and remove the tile at that time.

Opting for EHW mainly for cost. And I’m told since the solid HW is thicker, the transition won’t be flat. They’ve shown me wedge-shaped transition pieces that I don’t love. Convention in my area is carpet in all the bedrooms- and comps have sold that way. Hard to believe adding hardwood would decrease value over carpet. But seems carpet is preferred in this area, esp for 2nd floor. Though some newer homes have hardwood. so I’m curious.