Thanks so much Joe. Seems reasonably straightforward. Apologies for not thanking you sooner but I had put the project on hold until we got our plank, which we finally received Monday.
I have been working subfloor prep all week. With some grinding here and filling with thinset there I am slowly getting it good enough. The builder seems to have laid the OSB subfloor with the rough side up, for some reason I haven’t figured out yet, so that has made the prep more challenging. I came across your recommendation to use a flap disc on an angle grinder. I love it. Cuts like crazy and is way faster than my belt sander.
I have several questions I’m hoping you can help with:
1) In the blueprint we layout a line in the hallway as the first step and then later a line in the big bedroom at the top. The bedroom line is based on the outside wall and is used to start the plank. When transitioning out into the hallway and loft, we use the hallway line to setup the plank in the loft. What if that line is not parallel with the one in the bedroom that was used to start the plank? Is there enough give in the plank that it can adjust? It seems like the plank orientation for the entire floor is set by the first few rows. Or is the hallway line just used to get a row close enough so that the pieces going against the wall can be marked and installed, and then the addition of more rows will straighten it out to align with the rest of the floor?
2) I’m not sure what to do with the transition from the bedroom to the bathroom tile (cross-hatched area to the left of the bedroom). The tile is set on 3/8″ backerboard on top of the subfloor and this yields a 15/16″ step from the subfloor to the tile surface, seen in the picture below. The carpet was laid over a 3/8″ wedge seen in the second picture. Our plank is 5mm which leaves a difference of nearly 3/4″. I think this is too much for the reducer strip I purchased. With some creativity I could probably figure out how to mount it, but it is still a pretty big step up. The only idea I have is to build up the area with mortar and feather it way out into the room. I would need to build it up about 1/2″ for the reducer to fit “as intended”, but it seems this would require the feather to go out pretty far into the room. Is this my only option?
3) After pulling up the linoleum in the small bathroom I found some water damage to the subfloor along the tub. It is pretty hard to see in the picture below because looks like it is just wet OSB, but I dug out all the OSB that had come apart until I got down to stuff that was still solid. This is 1/2″-5/8″ at the deepest part. The edge of the tub is directly on a joint between two OSB sheets and the tongue of the sheet under the tub looks to be in good condition so I think (hopefully) the damage was limited to what I could see. Any suggestions on what I should fill the cavity with? Or do you think I should cut out a replace the damaged section? I’m assuming you come across this fairly regularly and hoping you might have some wisdom to impart.
Thank you much in advance and I hope you enjoyed your Christmas!
Jason