I believe the correct way is to have flooring under everything. If you lay your floors up to the cabs, you will always have base cabs .75" too low, I think?

Our builder shorted the floor to save hardwood. We would not have purchased the house had we known. The first hint was when our new fridge was delivered and barely fit under the upper cab.

Over the years, I always felt the counters were a tad too low. My back always hurt doing dishes. Years later, when we were in the middle of installing new granite and a new slide in range, the range would not fit. It would not crank down low enough to touch the counters. (There was hardwood in the range slot, and in the fridge slot so everything was off in relation to all else.) Thank heaven the range came before the new granite.

My dear BIL ripped all my base cabs out before the granite went on, laid .75" plywood under them, then reinstalled. But we were stuck with uppers still .75" too low. And a fridge slot that 95% of nice fridges would not fit. When the fridge began to die after 16 years, we opted to rip the kitchen to the studs and start over.

Yes. We are having our cabs delivered on Wednesday (!!) and my contractor said that they will install the lowers raised up a little and lay the floor all the way underneath.

Thanks for the info...I wonder if plywood or a cheaper tile (same thickness of floating floor) could be put under cabinet base..and put the floating floor under stove / ref / dishwasher?
The cabinet bases will be standard size so if anyone wanted to take them out..they still would be able to put new ones in...and it wouldn't show..there would be no way the cabinets could be placed any other way...and by that time they would probably want to put in new flooring..so it wouldn't matter....Just wondered if anyone has done this..and if so....how did it work?

In a previous remodel we had preexisting hardwood in and around our kitchen. As we moved walls and cabinets, we placed plywood underneath to match up with the existing hardwood. When our flooring guy came in he interlaced the old area with the old flooring we had pulled up for a perfect match. If someone were ever to want to change the layout though of the kitchen they may have to contend with hardwood repair.

I am not certain that floating floor should be installed under a solid surface like a cabinet. We are doing cork and we were told that it needs to be able to move. I want to make sure that dishwasher, fridge and freezer can be easily moved if they need to be fixed so i am laying just regular plywood that is the same thickness as our floating floor under the cabs themselves. That way the cork can go under the kickplate and the edges will be covered.

Tile or real sturdy solid wood flooring I would go under the cabinets but not with a semi-permanent type flooring like that where the need for a flooring change would require all the cabinets be removed.

It might be best to put another material of appropriate height underneath them, not sure.

Posted by: ali80ca
"I am not certain that floating floor should be installed under a solid surface like a cabinet. We are doing cork and we were told that it needs to be able to move. I want to make sure that dishwasher, fridge and freezer can be easily moved if they need to be fixed so i am laying just regular plywood that is the same thickness as our floating floor under the cabs themselves. That way the cork can go under the kickplate and the edges will be covered".

You are Correct...At least that's what one salesperson told me..but another (and I really think she was new)..but all the less she said she could see no problem with laying the floating floor under cabinets..but it makes sense what you said. So when they get here on Monday i will tell them I need plywood laid under cabinets. I wonder if it would be OK to let the tile go a inch or so under where the cabinets will be laid..that way they would have to cut the tile at the kickplate?

Permanently installed floors (nail down or glue down wood, ceramic tile, etc) go under the cabinets. Floating floors go in after everything else, and do not go under cabinets. You should install cabinets on top of the equivalent height plywood in order to not have appliance install issues and to maintain the proper overall height alignments of the cabinets and appliances.

There are pros and cons of installing permanent floors before or after cabinets. For every professional that tells you one way is better, there is another professional that will tell you the opposite. There are legitimate arguments on both sides.

Floating floors, however, should be installed after cabinets.

Thanks everyone for all your advice and knowledge...I feel a lot better about what I had planned to do...And I will save some money for something else....LOL
thanks again

Putting finish-in-place hardwood floors in before the cabinets actually cost little more than click-in floors and we're really happy with the results. If we want to change the layout later, we can; we didn't have to put plywood under the cabinets to raise them to the proper height--which saved money; and re-finishing is easy. I would imagine that it would be best not to install cabinets over a floating floor, however, but do account for the height difference.

I've consistently heard not to put cabinets over floating floors, also.

What I wonder is whether floating floors should/can be put under where the fridge, dishwasher and stove go or is it better to just put plywood there, too?

That's a point. If you can put a fridge on floating floors, they should be sturdy enough to handle cabinets.

If you put cabinets on a floating floor, you restrict it's expansion and contraction it WILL buckle or develop gaps. Floating means exactly that. Floating. A fridge is no where near as heavy as a run of cabinets all joined together!

So guess Refrigerator / Dishwasher and Stove can be put on floating floor.....Correct?
Would it be OK to run the floating floor say 1/2 inch to 1 inch under the cabinet to eliminate the cutting right at the kick plate...or is it better not to do that?

I'm still kinda confused as to whether it is better to just put plywood under the appliances, but I think I can answer your question, calyle.

What I have heard consistently is that you don't want any of the floating floor trapped under the cabinets as it won't be able to move/shift. This is going to make for problems over time.