Engineered floor - ground floor

[Luke_A]

Hi there,

We are renovating out Victorian terrace house and we have decided to lay a engineered floor downstairs.At the moment there is floating laminated flooring installed on which looks like 3mm insulation without DPM on the top of original floor boards.

My plan is to remove floor boards with moisture resistant chipboard, all mechanically fixed with glued tongue and grooves. Install 5mm underlay/dpm and mechanically fix the floor using secret fixings.

Does this sound ok? Being ground floor it was a bit cold and draftty last year.

Regards,

Luke.

 

[Swwils]

Whilst the floor is up you have a good chance to deal with the air ingress

 

[Deleted member 174758]

When you fix the chipboard consider gluing it to the tops of the joists as well as the tongues and leave a 5 to 10mm expansion gap around the edges of the sub-floor. When you install the finished floor, again leave a gap. If the gap is filled with Compraband (a highly compressed closed cell rubber strip which expands to fill gaps) you can pretty much put a stop to under skirting draughts, unless the masonry has holes in it. On upstairs rooms this stuff also reduces sound transmitted from the floor below

 

[Luke_A]

When you fix the chipboard consider gluing it to the tops of the joists as well as the tongues and leave a 5 to 10mm expansion gap around the edges of the sub-floor. When you install the finished floor, again leave a gap. If the gap is filled with Compraband (a highly compressed closed cell rubber strip which expands to fill gaps) you can pretty much put a stop to under skirting draughts, unless the masonry has holes in it. On upstairs rooms this stuff also reduces sound transmitted from the floor below

Thanks good shout with compraband. I will probably dressed up underlay onto the walls so it will be hidden behind skirtingbords.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

I've been on a few refurb projects now where we leveled the floors, leaving a 10mm gap between the walls and sub floor, and between the sub floor and structural stuff like cast iron columns. Using compraband in the gap after the laminate finished flooring goes on stops draughts dead. It expands outwards, not upwards, so skirting can be fitted directly above it. Providing your skirting is thicker than the gap is wide, it"s happy days

 

[crazydaze]

Hi there,

We are renovating out Victorian terrace house and we have decided to lay a engineered floor downstairs.At the moment there is floating laminated flooring installed on which looks like 3mm insulation without DPM on the top of original floor boards.

My plan is to remove floor boards with moisture resistant chipboard, all mechanically fixed with glued tongue and grooves. Install 5mm underlay/dpm and mechanically fix the floor using secret fixings.

Does this sound ok? Being ground floor it was a bit cold and draftty last year.

Regards,

Luke.

Firstly check the Engineered Floor is suitable to be fixed top the subfloor, not all are. Assuming the flooring is suitable, you will need to directly fix it to the subfloor without an underlay if this is your prefered method of installation and to do this correctly you will need to 6mm ply over the chipboard first before secret nailing the engineered flooring.

If you would like the extra insulation of an underlay, then you can lay this over the chipboard subfloor and float the engineered over the top. something like Duralay Multitex is a nice product.

Both methods still require full expansion gaps around the edge of the room.

 

[Luke_A]

Firstly check the Engineered Floor is suitable to be fixed top the subfloor, not all are. Assuming the flooring is suitable, you will need to directly fix it to the subfloor without an underlay if this is your prefered method of installation and to do this correctly you will need to 6mm ply over the chipboard first before secret nailing the engineered flooring.

If you would like the extra insulation of an underlay, then you can lay this over the chipboard subfloor and float the engineered over the top. something like Duralay Multitex is a nice product.

Both methods still require full expansion gaps around the edge of the room.

Thanks for the info. Can I nail it the floor and have insulation underneath? I don't like the feel of floated floor.

 

[crazydaze]

Thanks for the info. Can I nail it the floor and have insulation underneath? I don't like the feel of floated floor.

You can lay insulation under the chipboard, but you can't lay insulation between the ply and chipboard or the flooring and the ply. Laying over a chipboard & Ply prepped subfloor will feel fine but not as solid or dense as laying to a concrete subfloor by the nature of the subfloor make up.