Replies

1. 
   Shavey | Jun 04, 2006 04:24am | #1

   You will have to  get some tar paper down over the cement first and put some 6 mil  poly over the top of that to prevent moisture and mildew from attacking the bottom side of your floor. Then you will need to attach wood strips to the floor (normally called sleepers) , attach them with  a hilti gun or what have you,then lay 3/4 `` T&G plywood over that as the sub floor or eqivelent so that you can lay your finish floor down on that. Good luck!!

2. 
   Handydan | Jun 04, 2006 11:59am | #2

     I am no expert, but did a similar thing to our house and so far all is good.  I used the foam padding sold for laminate floating floors over the slab, then glued all the tongue and groove solid wood flooring together one piece at a time and let the whole thing float.  We don't heat or cool, so the temperature and humidity are pretty constant, so no big problem with shrinkage.  I did opt for a base molding plus shoe to cover a pretty good size expansion area.  Good luck.

    

   Dan

1. 
   user-163355 | Jun 05, 2006 03:57pm | #3

   Thanks for the thoughts.   Did you have expansion joints or spaces.  The reason is that the floor is going to cover in its own connected way,  a lot of open spaces that will be goind around corners.  About 1000 sq ft. 

1. 
   Handydan | Jun 07, 2006 10:36am | #5

   The room is almost 16 feet square, and I left nearly a 1/2 on all four sides, thus the need for double moldings to cover the gap.  Just in case it swells.  Humidity is supposed to be the enemy, but I think it is changing humidity levels that cause movement, good luck.

    

   Dan

3. 
   tjinfl | Jun 05, 2006 05:06pm | #4

   I live in Delray Beach in south Florida and have installed engineered wood flooring in all 3 of our bedrooms.  To ensure that a vapor barrier was used under the cement, I taped black plastic on the bare concrete floor for a few days and then checked for moisture.  Since there was no moisture, I proceeded to install the flooring using the glue recommended by the manufacturer (Hartco).  It's been down 4 years in our master bedroom and I've had no problems with adhesion at all.  I recently installed the same product in our other 2 bedrooms. 

   One thing you do have to check is the levelness of the slab.  I believe the specs were no more than 3/16" dip/crown in 8 feet.  I didn't have to do anything in our master, but I had to use floor leveling compound in the other two to bring them into spec. 

   Good luck on your project.

   Terry