They use particle board for the subfloor in all houses, manufactured or stick-built, and they were doing so more than 30 years ago, too. So it's not an indicator of poor quality construction in your home!

What you may consider doing is putting a layer of 1/4-inch plywood over the particle board before you get new flooring in the future. If you were getting a new vinyl floor that's what the installers would do. You could use a tile adhesive on the particle board to make the tiles stick now, but then you would be forced to lay the 1/4-inch plywood OVER the tile if you decide to get new flooring in the future, because you'd never get the tiles removed without damaging the subfloor.

In general, you have made a mistake by laying your tiles directly on the particleboard subfloor, and your best bet is to start over if you can afford to do so.

Thanks for your info. The guys who would install some laminate flooring said they could install it over the floor tile as long as we had all of it down. The laminate we seen had the foam backing or whatever it is already on the back of it. They said it was a good quality. So do you think this would help the problem by building the floor up with this from where we are at now?

Thanks Susan

I'd talk to the laminate installer guy about the loose tiles. He may have a good professional idea. Laminate "floats" above the subfloor, so an absolutely perfect surface isn't needed like it would be for ceramic tile. Installing the laminate over the tile sounds like a good idea to me. Maybe you can use some glue like Elmer's just to get the loose tiles to remain in position for the laminate installation.

Sad to say, I still haven't got my floor done yet. In March of 2012 my mother died, so everything has just been surreal. I am just now getting back to this issue. I am still debating on what to do. Money is so tight. We live on a fixed income, and my husband is disabled with heart problems, and I have lupus and other major auto immune issues. Neither of us with any energy, nevertheless, if I want to have a floor I will have to do something. It just bothers me to know to have laminate flooring installed will cost me at least twice the price than if I could install it myself, but I don't know if I could. I would still appreciate any comments from all of you nice folks in what might be done to keep my floor that has this particle sub-floor. Thank you all!!

susanp

Not a lot of people come here
so I really hate to send you to another forum...
But a floor is a floor is a floor..

There are many pro's over at the flooring forum that may be
able to help .
Then you can come back and tell us how it went !

I wish you all the best~

Here is a link that might be useful: http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/flooring/