We had floating laminate in our previous house and floated enginered wood and they aren’t noisy but have just a little extra give which is great!

There is no moisture coming through the proper glue. That stuff is like a rubber mat when it's set up.

We are by the water also with concrete slab. Our architect said we need a moisture barrier on the area we expanded into which needed to be raised a few inches. The architects found only one paintable product that was acceptable: SEAL-KRETE Vapor-Shell.

The contractor put the vapor shell on the raised area.

In the existing area, we had existing tile white-mortared on the concrete. The contractor couldn't get the existing tiles off easily so they put a very thin layer of grey-mortar over that to level everything out.

We then had engineered hardwood glued on top of the whole thing.

We did not want floating floors. We had that in our old house, walked on it in a friend's house, and we definitely don't like the soft feel.

Unfortunately about a quarter of the area is "popping".

It's like the floor is not staying glued down.

It's worse in winter than summer.

The flooring subcontractor came out and fixed a large area that was the worst by removing and replacing the strips.

But it drives me crazy and I'm going to have to ask them to come out again.

It's not happening in the area with the vapor barrier.

I think it was a problem with the installation, maybe they didn't use enough glue in that area.

Doing a little more research after all this, I read glued-down engineering floor over tile/concrete seems like a good idea but doesn't always work out great.

That was our experience.