How to Construct Subfloor

[JTurner]

Ok, so I obvisouly need a wood sub floor to nail this cherry into. I have not been able to find any info on how to construct the subfloor besides that it needs to be 3/4 in. thick. The deal is that I live in a condo so I cant nail into the concrete. I had midwest flooring tell me that I would need to use a glue/nail combo to attach the floor to the concrete. However, this is not possible so I was told to construct a floating floor. This makes sense but how do I construct the floating floor ? Is it still just 3/4in plywood ? I read on what site that it needed to be overlayed 1/2in ply wood. Thanks for the help!

J.-

[Edwin Pawlowski]

The proper way is to put down "sleepers" or 2 x 4's and put the subfloor on top of them. You'd also use a vapor barrier and insulation. You end up with a floor a few inches thick.

Considering the problems with the setup, consider using an engineered wood floor that is made for that type of application. There are many good brands, I used

[EXT]

Methods I have known: Glue tongue and groove plywood flat down to concrete and anchor in place with tapcon screws. The other is to run sleepers of wood cut down to 1" thick or use 2 x 4s laid flat if you have room, glued down to concrete and nail tongue and groove plywood flooring to it.

[JTurner]

My problem with using EHF is that I had a contractor tell me that I could simply glue down the wood and now I got screwed with 5,000 worth of 3/4 in solid cherry wood with no reasonable way to put it in. My step downs are going to be gigantic in the bathrooms if I use 2x4's. So, my flooring would then be 2.5 inches higher then my tile in the bathrooms, correct ?

[Sacramento Dave]

I would contact the manufacturer of the flooring about installation over concrete. Most the time on concrete you use a engineered flooring glued down. engineered is basically plywood with the desired wood for a top ply. I guess you could put runners 16" on center then nail a 3/4" ply to them. But then say you use 3/4" runners 3/4" ply 3/4" flooring so now you at 2

1/4" . your trimming all the doors it will be higher than your front door and sliding door sills. Then what about going into Bathrooms and Kitchen, If you put the floor in them how will your toe kicks look and if you don't put the floor in them you know how that will look. I would find a Glue Down Floor.

[JTurner]

This is what the install instructions according to bella are

Next, a moisture barrier system must be added over the concrete, and a wood subfloor (minimum 3/4 inch plywood or sleepers) must be installed

Do i still need to install sleepers underneath the plywood or can I just use the 2x4's and no plywood. Since I cant properly attach the subfloor to the concrete by using screws and the floor has to be floating. Sorry if this doesn't make sense, by construction knowledege is fairly limited.

-J

[Sacramento Dave]

I read some more of you post Factor this in How much is the floating floor is going to cost? Can you go back to the supplier for refund? If he told you it would be OK to use solid he miss lead you. You could offer to buy the right flooring from him, You might have to resell it, that might be cheaper than the whole floating thing you know it would be less work and look better

[JTurner]

Sacramento Dave -

Funny, I use to live in Sacramento..anyways. Well the contracter was a friend of a neighbor and he took me to lumber liquidators. I ordered the stuff from LL which has a strict no refund policy. So unless I can find someone to buy some cherry wood which i think might be difficult, I guess I have to use it. I have EHF brazillian cherry in the other half of my house now and although I like the way it looks i dont think it looks as good as sold plank. I wish this stuff was easier to install though!

So I did some more research and now I am thinking about doing 2 layers of 1/2 PDX? plywood and laying them across each other and screming them together. This guy is such an idiot he cant even read, he told me that on the bella website it said he could GLUE the subfloor in. I checked the site again and it doesn't mention this anywhere.

I would get someone else to do my floors but no one is available until march of next year and all the furniture is out of my house. I am in a real bind here.

[Wayne Whitney]

Yes, this would be give you a floating subfloor, I would suggest trying this. It is was I plan to do when I put hardwood over basement slab. You could use 3/8" plywood and laminate it with construction adhesive and short screws.

Cheers, Wayne

[Goedjn]

What they're telling you is that the flooring needs 3/4" of wood underneath it anywhere you're going to put a nail. That can be either plywood or sleepers. If you want really solid feeling floor, use plywood. If you're using it as a dance floor, use 1x3 sleepers.

[James "Cubby" Culbertson]

That's a tough spot to be in! LL does have a pretty strict refund policy. Have you tried to exchange it for the 3/8" Braz. Cherry that you could then glue down? I'd go so far as to call your local store and email their corporate headquarter's with your story (and if they refuse, you can always tell them you'll be bashing them on Usenet :) ). As long as the 3/4" hasn't been opened, I would think they could work something out for you. You might even try Ebay....hell you might even make a profit there! As for the subfloor, I'll defer to the other, more knowledgeable folks. Cheers and good luck, cc