We’re building a house with the first floor level is a slab on grade. The architect has specified 3/4″ pine flooring to be glued down. I’m sure this can’t be accomplished with solid wood, so we’ll have to use an engineered product. I haven’t had much luck finding an engineered pine (oak is plentiful). I also haven’t been successful in finding a local flooring contractor who is very knowledgeable in installing engineered flooring. What’s the best application, glue it directly to the concrete, or allow it to float over the concrete? Any sources for materials?
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For gluing down an engineered floor, you'd have to get into the installations specifications for the specific flooring that you're thinking of using.
Som engineered floors can be glued directly to a slab. Some specify that the slab cannot be below grade, as in a basement slab, only on-grade.
My preferred method would be to embed a sheet of poly in cold tar that was trowelled onto the slab. Over that I'd float two layers of half-inch CDX, steams staggered, with the layers screwed together but with the screws not penetrating the poly/cold tar.
Then either float or nail/staple the flooring to the ply sandwich. If you want to glue the flooring, you may want to substitute a better grade of sheet good for the top layer of CDX. Depends on what the flooring manufacturer specifies.
You can flooring directly to a slab, I'm just not a fan of the practice.