ALL of the flooring needs to come out...ALL of the lauan plywood; insist that it be done!

Then...find a reputable retailer to sell and install the flooring and the recommended underlayment plywood.

Although installing flooring is not 'rocket science'...you would be amazed how easily it is to screw up; that is why competent, trained installers get top dollar for what they do. Untrained laborers and the occasional hanyman can get the job done, but that risk will be entirely yours if you go that route. However, if you have confidence in your handyman and he can follow ALL written directions that come with the product, then perhaps that might be the way to go for you...if you can't find a retailer/installer who instills confidence.

In my opinion the only warranty claim you will void is any defect due to improper or faulty installation. As far as I understand the law, a manufacturer cannot void a 'material' warranty simply because a product was not professionally installed.

It is indeed sad that the flooring business does not have more skilled and trained installers, but it has been that way for as long as I can remember.

Get the underlayment out and quiet those sqeaks now. No one in his right mind will guarantee that those sqeaks will never return or new ones appear as the seasons change.

Glensfc, thanks for the reply. I would dearly love to find a competent trained installer and would willingly pay top dollar. Unfortunately, even after finding a KD/GC who came with high recommendations (we talked to about a dozen former clients before signing the contract), it seems that with a few hours research on the web, we know more about the various aspects of our kitchen remodel than most of the sales and trades people we have come in contact with. Most of them just say "yeah, yeah, yeah, I know", then start to do exactly what I don't want them to do.

We'll try a few more flooring places, and if we can't get a good feeling from any of them, I think we will go with our design/build guy, and go over the entire DuraCeramic installation manual with him before letting him start.

words to say often:

'my floor, my money, my way' or 'my house, my money, my way'

Where are you in the US?

We are in the MD suburbs of DC.

On the sixth try, we finally found a flooring guy who seems to know what he is talking about. He came out to see our kitchen after demo and after removal of the water-damaged subfloor. He pointed out that we have (upward of the joists) 5/8" plywood, 1/2" plywood, original sheet vinyl, lauan, and newer sheet vinyl. He guessed that the second plywood layer was installed to raise the the original sheet vinyl kitchen floor up to the level of the adjoining dining room hardwood.

The KD/GC had removed the "old floor," per contract, down to and including the original sheet vinyl, and removed and replaced the water-damaged part of the subfloor. The joists were fine.

The flooring guy said the white stuff remaining on top of the undamaged subfloor was NOT underlayment like I had thought - it was a thin paper backing of the original sheet vinyl that had been glued to the subfloor and did not come up when everything else down to the original vinyl was removed. The staples had been put down through the lauan and original vinyl before laying the new vinyl, and remained after the GC had pulled up everything down to the original vinyl.

The flooring guy recommended screwing down the two layers of subfloor into the joists to get rid of squeaks and remove or pound down the staples, then sand and level the subfloor. Then install either (1) 6mm Halex followed by the DuraCeramic, or (2) float the DuraCeramic using the Congoleum flexible UnderFlor(TM) underlayment. He recommended the Underflor. When I said I wanted a very stiff floor, he said the 1 1/8"total of the two layers of plywood subfloor would provide plenty of stiffness, and when well screwed down, would be just fine.

This sounds OK to us - anything we should question? If the price comes in anywhere near reasonable, we think we will go with this guy.

I am involved with a big time congoleum store that specializes in Duraceramic and the fellow your dealing with sounds right on the money. He said all the right things.