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I am interested in having an open floor plan in a section of the house and within the area some concrete floors abutting soft or hardwood flooring. I want the concrete floor to be at the finished height of the flooring, (no stepping up or down), but am unsure of expansion of the flooring material. Any suggesions.
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location?
concrete expansion?
wood floor shrinkage/expansion most likely?
stamped concrete will provide some control joints within the concrete floors themselves.
various form/screed combos can provide a step.
could attach material at flooring thickness under your screed. use rough lumber for your forms to leave ~3 1/2" slab under wood floor area. leave the earth under the concrete floor areas elevated that much higher.
could simply add 2x on side under screed, determine the difference between 1 1/2" and your wood floor thickness and make that up with ply subfloor or insulation material if desired/necessary.
my guess is that you're most concerned about problems at the interface...
brian
*Wood flooring should not expand enought in height to matter.Softwood flooring will compress after a few expansion/contraction cycles if set tight. So spacing is not as much of a problem as with hardwood.1/4" expansion in 10' (width) is about as much as a hardwood will expand. If it expands more than that it will pull the nails out.
*I'd normally allow 3/8" (10mm) expansion gap at the perimeter of a hardwood floor and fill with a compressible filler.As George said, the vertical expansion will be negligible.
*Let's back up here a second. On top of what substrate are you pouring a concrete floor ? How thick will the concrete be ?