Teach me hardwood floors

In reply to Enyar:

I love/hate tile.

I hate installing it but I love that it will outlast the house I put it in.

There's still tile in place that the Romans installed.

calteg wrote:

SVreX wrote:

Curmudgeon wrote: My mom and stepdad had their kitchen floor done in stone, which looks great. Unfortunately, their house is on a crawl space and has what looks like OSB (might be one of the products SVReX mentioned) and since it can flex some of the stones have cracked.

If it flexed like that, it was probably OSB, not one of those subfloor products. That's why I said it was an unsuitable subfloor.

Alright, I'm dumb. My hardwood project is replacing carpet in two rooms. Underneath the carpet is a pad, and underneath that is slab. Can I install hardwood on slab? Do I need to build a subfloor so that the hardwood will end up even with the rest of the house?

patgizz covered this well. I'm going to add my own experience: I have seen hardwood glued down to slabs, I wasn't impressed with the results. The hardwood can and will buckle and bow, moisture is the biggest contributor to that problem. So you need to take the following into consideration: how high is the slab from grade? My living room is only about 12" above grade, from what I can see. That means the slab is more prone to moisture wicking through, particularly if there was no plastic vapor barrier laid before the slab was poured. If the house is raised slab, like 24" or better above grade the possibility of moisture wicking up is greatly reduced.

Next, how is the exterior drainage? Again mine wasn't great, I have installed gutters to take care of that but that still does not mean there's no moisture coming through.

Then the slab must be level, if there are low places the hardwood is going to bow and make some serious racket when stepped on. That can be fixed with quick set leveling compound but that stuff is pricey.

After taking this all into account, I decided on tile which eliminated about 90% of the problems associated with the hardwood install. I have only one gripe: in cold weather (or what passes for cold down here) walking on it barefoot will feel like it's sucking the heat out of the body! That is easily fixed with area rugs and runners. Those are much more easily kept clean and dust free (my daughter is asthmatic so this is very important).

Both patgizz and Curmudgeon are right.

That's why I avoid gluing solid wood to concrete. Floating floors work better. There are good floating floors, and crappy floating floors.

If I was going tile for the whole house, I'd look at in-floor radiant heating.

SVreX wrote: Both patgizz and Curmudgeon are right. That's why I avoid gluing solid wood to concrete. Floating floors work better. There are good floating floors, and crappy floating floors.

Is there a particular "click" together hardwood BRAND that is known to be better than others?

I'm seriously considering some, but only the thickest available. I Want to do my whole 1st floor, minus the bathrooms. Ranch over basement.. Previous owner loved 18x18 porcelain (it's in all 3 bedrooms + the dining room, FFS)

Keith Tanner wrote: If I was going tile for the whole house, I'd look at in-floor radiant heating.

The dream house in my head has this, but embedded into the concrete slab. All the floors are just polished concrete.