Replacing wood parquet floor in high rise condo

8 years ago

I desperately need input from flooring experts.

This is for a small condo (about 500 sqft) on the second floor in a high rise building. Ceiling/floors are concrete There's no tenant underneath.

The current floor is carpet on top of those what I think are old Bruce veneer ply 9x9 tiles from the 60s, like this:

My preference for the new floor is a light plank floor, either floating or glued down. This is what one floor contractor recommended, who has done excellent work for me; however, that was done on floors in low-rise apartments or single homes (no concrete floor). He has seen the condition of the floor before the current carpet was installed, i.e. the bare floor where the water damaged tiles had been removed and the remaining parquet tiles, but he hasn't seen all the concrete floor underneath.

A GC, who is very familiar with the building, recommends replacing everything with new parquet tiles, probably like these:
http://www.armstrong.com/flooring/site-search.asp?q=parquet

This would run about 9.00/sqft incl. new subfloor. He strongly advises against plank floor, because installation would be very difficult:

"I know that the concrete floors have HUGE
unevenness all around and leveling that concrete floor
(raising level of it up to 2” to 3” at certain spots) would take a lot
of time. Then, some wood type of subflooring would need to be installed
on concrete slab and only then the flooring. Whole floor would
rise for maybe 4” !

Any other method of hardwood flooring installation in that condo would not be proper and problems would occur after the installation. NO FLOORING company will
do it the right way and you would end up with problems. That is why parquet was installed initially. Floors do not have to be perfectly straight and you can not see unevenness.I'm not crazy about installing parquet, but is he right? Obviously, I don't want floor guy no. 1 to run into the problems the GC describes above and then end up with a horrible floor.

TIA

Featured Answer

PRO

Johnson Flooring Co Inc

8 years ago

That does change things a bit. There are buildings I've worked in that are notorious for bad concrete work yet even then some units are decent. You should still be able to lay a level on top of concrete and determine if the concrete is grossly out of level. For a finer measurement you would need to remove the carpet. I still stand by my opinion that putting parquet over a floor that's 3" out won't disguise the problem but it would avoid the bouncy floating floor issue. Gluing could work but the installer may need weight buckets to weight down floor in low spots until the glue sets up.

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Comments (9)

PRO
Johnson Flooring Co Inc
8 years ago
Sounds questionable. Variations from 2 to 3 inches are rare. Chances are you don't have them, but even if you did, putting down parquet wouldn't disguise them. Get a long straight board and/or a level and set it on sections of the floor. Making a blanket statement about all concrete floors being out of level is inaccurate.

The parquet in the unit was probably done because it was an inexpensive wood floor, not to deal with a subfloor issue.

Floating floors are very sensitive to level however. They generally use the same specification as architects which is level to 1/8" within 10'. Humps in the floor can cause areas to be bouncy. This is generally easily fixed by doing some floating.
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nosoccermom
Original Author
8 years ago
This guy knows the building very well. Was the building engineer and now does renovations. Of course, I don't know his flooring skill level --- unlike guy no 1. Wood floors is all he does.

So, would you recommend gluing or floating? Engineered or hardwood?

Also, would it be possible to install above the old tiles that are still in good shape, provided one can fill in the space where damaged tiles were removed? I hate to think of the work to remove those glued on old tile (asbestos?)

Testing how level floor is would require removing the carpet first, I assume, or not?
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nosoccermom
Original Author
8 years ago
Alright, sounds like first order is to check how uneven the floor really is.

Do the old tiles have to removed before any install of floor?
PRO
Johnson Flooring Co Inc
8 years ago
I think it would be best. If it's old Bruce glue or the black adhesive they are often crystallized so the floor might pop right up. If the floor is glued solid I suppose you could go over it. My thought is that the new floor may last a long time so it's risky to put it over something that may fail.
nosoccermom thanked Johnson Flooring Co Inc
PRO
Cancork Floor Inc.
8 years ago
They guys and gals on thefloorpro are working on this. A floating floor does NOT like a variation of 2". An engineered hardwood doesn't like it. Carpet = no problem. These little finger parquet = obviously don't mind. Sheet vinyl/lino = don't mind the variation.

If you want a plank looking ANYTHING you are going to have to fix the variation. And if it is as wonky as you say it is, this is going to get expensive.
nosoccermom thanked Cancork Floor Inc.
nosoccermom
Original Author
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
It's actually not the little finger parquet but 9x9 that look like this.

I'll wait for the floorpros, but it sounds first order is to establish how even/uneven the floor is.

Easiest would, of course, be to find about 120 sqft of those tiles.
PRO
G & S Floor Service
8 years ago
2-3" variation, leveling is out of the question. Your door heights would be too low. May not comply with code.

If, your floor pro guy is skilled with skim coating. They can bring it in within tolerance for installation. Then use super sticky stuff, that is rated for "unlimited width" to hold your planks down. Use planks 3-5" width. Anything wider, you need a perfect sub-floor.
mmcgee2
6 years ago
Hey, nosoccermom, how did the project finally end up? I'm in a DC apt with the same exact parquet, and rather uneven floors, almost certainly adhered with asbestos mastic and would love it if I could install engineered wood right over.