Gluing down click-lock hardwood floor

I'm planning to put hardwood floor in one room. I think I understand the difference between click-lock (C&L) and tounge & groove (T&G) engineered hardwood. I've looked at three stores and to me, the click-lock looks as good as T&G and is a lot cheaper. But I don't like C&L because it creaks every step you take, it seems. So I'm wondering about gluing down C&L, the way you would T&G. I understand that you can glue down C&L but the problem is that it will be more difficult to tear up way in the future.

Are there any other reasons to not glue down C&L?

Reply to
Jud
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Maybe that's why it's cheaper.

I baby-sat an apartment while my friend had a t&g floor put down. It's been 43 years, buit iirc, he put it over a layer of foam, even though the floor was wood. But I may be mistaken.

That's for sure.

Reply to
Micky

Wood expands and contracts considerably with humidity. This might be a problem.

Reply to
Frank

Is 'click & lock' the same as laminate flooring? If it is I have it down in my sewing/craft room and it's been down for 9 years. No creaking or squeaking. The job was done correctly with the thin layer of foam as Micky described. It's a 'floating' floor; in other words it expands and contracts with the weather. Gluing the floor down may or may not cause warping and bowing. Just spring for the thin foam layer and do the job correctly.

Reply to
ItsJoanNotJoann

+1
Reply to
ItsJoanNotJoann

I nail down my t&g hardwood with a hardwood floor nailer. Easier to remove than glued down - and I have NO squeaks. (I put about

100 lbs of screws in the plywood subfloor and made sure the crossbracing on the joists was 100% solid)
Reply to
clare

"engineered" hardwood doesn.t cup unless it expands enough to buckle the floor. Still, not sure I'd consider gluing it, except for the first couple rows and last couple rows you can'y get with the nailer.

- and with click-lock that's not even an issue.

Reply to
clare

"Jud" wrote

| Are there any other reasons to not glue down C&L?

It needs to float because of expansion. The whole floor expands and contracts as a unit. (And it needs space around the edges for that, under the baseboard.) There shouldn't be a problem if you put the right pad under it.

T&G needs to be nailed. Each board expands separately. You put down rosin paper rather than a foma pad. The biggest difference is that CL is veneer on plywood. It lasts only as long as the finish, making it a disposable floor. T&G, whether pre-finished or not, is solid wood. When the finish wears off you can have it sanded and refinished. It's more work and more money, and you'd need to rent a nailer, but you get a better floor.

If done right, neither should squeak. But you do have to make sure the subfloor is solid and stable.

Reply to
Mayayana

I had about 300 sqft of laminate put in about 2 months ago. It came with its own foam type backing so no extra foam was needed. They delivered it about 3 days before installing it so it was aclimate to the house. Sofar no squeks or other problems. They did run a large streight edge over the floor and a couple of high spots were planed down to make it level.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

It will go on a concrete slab.

Reply to
Jud

I've ruled out laminate in favor of engineered wood. When we bought this house a few years ago, we immediately pulled up the carpet in two bedrooms and put down engineered T&G. I want to do the same with the third bedroom, but it doesn't have to match the others.

Reply to
Jud

But the tounge-and-groove engineered wood we've had glued down for years is doing fine.

BTW, I was going to have them install it rather than do it myself.

Reply to
Jud

This is on a concrete slab, so I think glue is the only way to go. That is what they did with the other two rooms years ago with T&G engineered wood.

Reply to
Jud

This reply best answers my concerns. So I think I really need to go with T&G.

Reply to
Jud

You can buy engineered hardwood in click or T&G, and some engineered has a pretty good top ply which CAN be sanded at least once (with care)

SOLID

T&G engineered hardwood is NOT solid hardwood. It's not the format that determines the construction - just as you can buy engineered hardwood OR composite(laminate) flooring in click-lock - and in thicknesses from less than 4mm About 3/16") to 15mm or more.(about

5/8") The slick laminate in my basement is 15mm. The hardwood in my living/dining room is 5/8" elm, and the upstairs bedrooms 3/8" oak.
Reply to
clare

Then absolutely positively do NOT glue it down.

Reply to
clare

Glue down or glue together? It may be good enough to put glue at the joint and still have a floating floor with a pad under it. Tongue and groove works well like that but i have no experience with C lock

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

"Jud" wrote

| But the tounge-and-groove engineered wood we've had glued down for | years is doing fine. |

Are you sure you mean glued down? The terms here are confusing. "Engineered hardwood" is just a valorizing marketing term for cheap plywood flooring. It can be CL or glued, but in both cases it floats.

If you have a concrete floor (you should have mentioned that! :) then you can float either type of plywood flooring. But you wouldn't glue it down.

I misunderstood when you referred to T&G. I thought you were asking about plywood flooring (CL) vs solid wood flooring (T&G). The latter would need a wood subfloor attached to the concrete, but it sounds like that option was never something you were considering, anyway.

So.... use either type of plywood flooring. But float it. Don't glue it to the concrete.

| BTW, I was going to have them install it rather than | do it myself.

Then why are you asking how to do it?! If I were bidding on that job and you started telling me how to do my work, based on advice from a newsgroup, I'd walk out and be sure never to do any more estimates for you. If you're not doing the work then you need to get a good contractor and let them do it their way.

Reply to
Mayayana

snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca> wrote

| You can buy engineered hardwood in click or T&G, and some engineered | has a pretty good top ply which CAN be sanded at least once (with | care)

Why bother? And how about if we call it was it is? It's plywood veneer flooring. "Engineered hardwood" is somewhere between farfetched marketing and downright lying. There's no reason to use such a scam term just because the flooring companies use it.

I misunderstood Jud's first post. I thought he was comparing CL plywood flooring to prefinished solid wood flooring. It turns out that he seems to be comparing CL plywood to glued plywood, but mistakenly thinks the glued type gets glued to the floor. I think part of the problem here is that he doesn't know the different products and is just trying to be a smart shopper before he calls contractors.

I'm amazed by how many people think they can know better than the contractor by doing a little reading and asking questions online. It makes me sympathetic toward the doctors who complain about patients coming in and saying, "I need you to prescribe XYZ for me, Doc."

Reply to
Mayayana

I'm not really sure what "float" means, unless it means not fastened down.

Maybe I should explain better what I want.

Just after we moved to this house 14 years ago, we took up the carpet in two bedrooms and put down engineered T&G hadwood. They glued it to the concrete slab. If feels solid to walk on (doesn't give) and it doesn't creak. Now I want to replace the carpet in another room.

I've looked at three stores, and there seems to be:

  1. Laminate, not real wood.
  2. Engineered wood that is click-lock, doesn't require glue
  3. Engineered wood that is T&G, glued to the concrete slab
  4. Solid wood.

I want something better than laminate, but not too expensive. I don't want it to give or creak when I walk. I would use a professional installer.

The room is just under 150 square feet in size. The ones that did the floors the first time gave me a price of $8-10 per square foot.

I looked at HD and Lowes and they have stuff that is a lot cheaper.

I was thinking of having the cheaper CL floor glued down so that it doesn't give or creak, but that sounds like a bad idea (although the guy at Lowes said that some people do it).

Because I didn'tt know whether or not I should have them glue CL down or not. I want it to feel solid and not creak when you walk on it.

Reply to
Jud

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