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Flooret Craftsman over existing hardwood floor
Hi Joe! I started this project with my brother and was fairly confident. We finished a large section of my 1100 sqft house and that was the L shaped living/dining area. I was walking around and inspecting our work and was barefoot, which is when I noticed the floor had a noticeable slope underfoot. Due to the hardwood subfloor, of course. My utter inability to understand Flooret’s installation instructions of the subfloor not to vary ‘more than 3/16th of an inch over 10 feet’ is laughable. So, I could use your help extrapolating that to what I found with my 6 ft level. Pics are sequential and should have the info you need in it to understand what I’m talking about. The high side is from the steel joist below the floor that runs parallel with the direction I’ve laid the floor – which is also the direction of the original hardwood boards. I will run into this issue again, I have found, in my bedroom where there is a 2nd steel joist underneath.
I have also attached a couple of pics of what the long side of the LVP locking mechanism looks like in some places and it concerns me. Mostly everywhere we’ve laid the flooring, the edges fit tight. Some look like pic 5 – is this a problem? Also, pic 5 is specifically the seam where the slope starts – on the other side of the steel beam. Other boards that I have found these tiny gaps on the long edge are not on slopes, though.
Lastly – I found a video on youtube where you pulled up the flooring you installed for a customer, and then screwed down the hardwood boards. Was it solely because the boards were too squeaky for the customer? I don’t see any nails in my boards, for the most part, so I assume they are glued down. They squeak some, but it doesn’t bother me. Should I still screw them down because they will eventually shift under the LVP and cause issues with the integrity of the floating system? With a 40 mil wearlayer, I hope not to have to replace this ever, but would like to preserve the hardwood just in case I want to refinish one day. Thanks so much for looking!
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4 Replies
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To add – the slope heads down towards the wall side on the right in pic 1.
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Thank you so much for your quick reply! You’ve granted me a huge sense of relief. To answer some of your questions –
-You are correct, this is the Modin Craftsman style. The color is ‘SoHo’, which I really love. It can look very pale in the bright sun, but also casts a beautiful light-yellow hue when not full sun/evening. Side note, in the dog pic there are bones surrounding her, and these are the exact reason I went with Flooret Modin. I tested several products from Lowes and Home Depot, with 20 mil and 30 mil wear layers. Flooret Modin was the only product that passed the ‘bone test’. I dropped one of her deer antler treats from about 4 ft with and without force, and the 40 mil layer didn’t chip, scratch, or dent. Every other product did. My hardwood floors are dented and scratched all over my house, and I needed something that would continue to look great even after all of the bone drops. These same bones have even cracked porcelain tiles in my kitchen!
– I’d be happy to share pics – I’ve attached the originals without the type, and more. I am going for a full mid-century modern look with my reno and the purple walls will soon be a dark green.
– The seams that I am questioning are running along the side of the joist, where the slope starts. I will attempt to tighten up with a pull-bar, but I wonder – how many rows from the joint can you use the pull-bar successfully to tighten it up? I’m sure it varies, but in this example, I’d be attempting from the closest wall that is 15-20 planks (3.25 inches each) away from the joint. The other wall is about 10 feet away.
My only other question was about not having screwed down my hardwood floorboards. I believe they were glued down when installed, many years ago, and they don’t squeak too much – or at least not so much that it would bother me under the new floors. Is there any reason to screw down floorboards if there isn’t an integrity issue? They are solid with no movement and minimal gaps between boards.
Thanks again!
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