Flooring Question

[BigRichard]

Doing some remodeling in the house and wondering what is the correct way of doing flooring in the following situation. I plan on knocking out the wall between the kitchen and the dinning area. The dining area has carpet and the kitchen has linoleum. The linoleum has a 1/4" board underneath it. I am planning on pulling out the carpet and linoleum and laying down either wood or laminate wood flooring. Is the proper way to put down 1/4 board on the carpet side to level it out or to rip up the 1/4 wood on linoleum side to level it out?

Thanks in advance everyone. CP never disappoints.

[HonestChieffan]

Which side is biggest?

[Bugeater]

I would rip up the linoleum and underlayment if it's at all possible. It would probably be about the same amount of work either way and ripping up the one side won't cost you any money.

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by Baconeater

I would rip up the linoleum and underlayment if it's at all possible. It would probably be about the same amount of work either way and ripping up the one side won't cost you any money.

Exactly.

[Ming the Merciless]

I'd rip the 1/4 inch underlay up....seems like less work.

[Buehler445]

The correct way is to call notorious. Then you let notorious do it. Then you buy notorious beer.

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

The correct way is to call notorious. Then you let notorious do it. Then you buy notorious beer.

This all day. Notorious lives for flooring, I need any advice / help he's the first dude I'd call.

[kccrow]

You want to keep the underlayment and it should be running perpendicular to your sub floor. You want to put felt paper on top of that before laying your hardwood floor. I manufacture hardwood flooring, but if you want to do it another way more power to you.

Why do this? Well, for starters... your floor joist run 1 way. The subfloor runs perpendicular to the floor joist. the underlayment will run parallel to the floor joist. when you run your flooring, you run perpendicular to the floor joists. this creates a crossing of the floor and underlying sub floors. Everything is tight and reduces squeaking. the underlayment ensures a flat, clean surface. the felt paper further reduces squeaking. Also, make damn sure you rack your floor tight or it'll look like shit in no time. Also, make sure you snap lines from room to room off of high visual areas and run off those, don't run off one side and go to the other.

Anyhow, hope it helps, have fun.

[scho63]

Originally Posted by BigRichard

Doing some remodeling in the house and wondering what is the correct way of doing flooring in the following situation. I plan on knocking out the wall between the kitchen and the dinning area. The dining area has carpet and the kitchen has linoleum. The linoleum has a 1/4" board underneath it. I am planning on pulling out the carpet and linoleum and laying down either wood or laminate wood flooring. Is the proper way to put down 1/4 board on the carpet side to level it out or to rip up the 1/4 wood on linoleum side to level it out?

Thanks in advance everyone. CP never disappoints.

I owned a hardwood flooring store for many years. You never want to leave your sub-floor with less than adequate support as things like laminate flooring could suffer deflection and bounce if not enough strength underneath. if you install a thin engineered hardwood flooring you could suffer the same issues.

You just need to check your heights in the kitchen near your gas/electric range and your dishwasher to ensure that any installation of new flooring will not trap those appliances in their positions if they ever fail and you need to replace them.

If you install 3/4" hardwood flooring you should be fine either way.

Installation ALWAYS run perpendicular to the floor joists for support with one small exception, if you build up the subfloor with 3/4" plywood and then the flooring.

Notorious installs hardwood floors for a living so he can add a lot of great advice.

[notorious]

Everyone has given good advice so far. Good work.

The linoleum is probably rolled up the walls, so take a razor and cut about 1" from the wall (on the floor) so that you can get a small 9-14" flat bar underneath the cove against the wall for tearout.


When pulling up the 1/4" underlay, try to get a long, solid steel flat bar (mine is 5' long) and pull the edges up slowly. It is probably stapled a million times, so if you are careful you can pull the staples and underlay at the same time.

Most of the time I will pull out a small 4" circular saw and set the depth at a hair more than 1/4" and cut grids 2-3' grids into the linoleum and underlay. This makes it a lot easier to manage when pulling out piece by piece.

Don't pull the left over staples, just hammer them flush with the subfloor. This will save you hours and your wrists will thank you later.


Like Sho said, make sure the area where the wall has been tore out is flat. Any uneven surface may lead to problems down the line.

[BigRichard]

Originally Posted by notorious

Everyone has given good advice so far. Good work.

The linoleum is probably rolled up the walls, so take a razor and cut about 1" from the wall (on the floor) so that you can get a small 9-14" flat bar underneath the cove against the wall for tearout.


When pulling up the 1/4" underlay, try to get a long, solid steel flat bar (mine is 5' long) and pull the edges up slowly. It is probably stapled a million times, so if you are careful you can pull the staples and underlay at the same time.

Most of the time I will pull out a small 4" circular saw and set the depth at a hair more than 1/4" and cut grids 2-3' grids into the linoleum and underlay. This makes it a lot easier to manage when pulling out piece by piece.

Don't pull the left over staples, just hammer them flush with the subfloor. This will save you hours and your wrists will thank you later.


Like Sho said, make sure the area where the wall has been tore out is flat. Any uneven surface may lead to problems down the line.

So ripping up the 1/4 underlay is the recommended way of doing it.

[BigRichard]

Originally Posted by notorious

Everyone has given good advice so far. Good work.

The linoleum is probably rolled up the walls, so take a razor and cut about 1" from the wall (on the floor) so that you can get a small 9-14" flat bar underneath the cove against the wall for tearout.


When pulling up the 1/4" underlay, try to get a long, solid steel flat bar (mine is 5' long) and pull the edges up slowly. It is probably stapled a million times, so if you are careful you can pull the staples and underlay at the same time.

Most of the time I will pull out a small 4" circular saw and set the depth at a hair more than 1/4" and cut grids 2-3' grids into the linoleum and underlay. This makes it a lot easier to manage when pulling out piece by piece.

Don't pull the left over staples, just hammer them flush with the subfloor. This will save you hours and your wrists will thank you later.


Like Sho said, make sure the area where the wall has been tore out is flat. Any uneven surface may lead to problems down the line.

Home Depot has a tool you can rent which is basically a jack hammer that lays at an angle with a sharp blade meant for tearing up the underlay. You ever used one of those? I thought that would be a quick way to tear it up if I needed to.

[notorious]

Originally Posted by BigRichard

Home Depot has a tool you can rent which is basically a jack hammer that lays at an angle with a sharp blade meant for tearing up the underlay. You ever used one of those? I thought that would be a quick way to tear it up if I needed to.

It's a rotary hammer. I have a Bosch, which is a great tool, but I would pass on using it for this job.


With a long lever you can get further under the backerboard/underlay to pull the staples up as you tear out. With a rotary hammer it will break the board and staples off so that you have little pieces of wood jammed in the staples that are a pain to get out.


Just pray that they didn't glue down the backer.........

[notorious]

Laminate has a stronger surface, but is weaker when it comes to water exposure and doesn't look as nice.

Wood looks nicer but is more apt to scratch. If you go with a hand-scraped wood, a simple colored pencil from Hobby Lobby can fill in scratches to the point of them disappearing.

The rage now days is hand-scraped and distressed wide plank or varying width with a Matte finish. For people that change styles every 7-10 years, go for it, if you want a floor that will survive all fads, go with a 3/4" unfinished wood that can be re-sanded several times to change with the times.


Anything 5" or wider needs to be glued and nailed unless it's engineered. Although I put in a TON of engineered, I am not a huge fan. Depending on the face thickness, you may not get a refinish out of it

[notorious]

If you go with 3/4" (which I recommend), try to rent a 15 gauge power stapler instead of a cleat nailer.


Staples hold a lot better.