Real wood onto concrete. Floor height issues?

[carled]

Hi All

Old wood floor is currently glued straight onto concrete (50-ish years old, very dry!). Old wood floor is 12mm thick. It got ink spilled on and insurance has paid out for new floor. We're planning on getting a nice new wood floor and the supplier has some 23mm thick stained pine stuff we like.

Trouble is... they recommend 2 x 1" battens on the floor first. Now the gap between the base concrete and the underside of the door is about 25-30mm, so we have space without touching the door IF we stick it direct to the concrete. However, if we stick in 1" battens first, that's going to lift the whole floor up a good inch to inch and a half above the (carpeted) hall floor level, leading to an almost invisible step into the front room, which EVERYONE will fall over...

Anyone else solved this problem before?

 

[WoodYouLike]

Anyone else solved this problem before?

Every day
Don't use battens. Floor is solid concrete, stable, level; boards are T&G, 23 mm thick; why battens?

Install floating I would suggest, using a combi-underlayment first (includes DPM) and glue all T&G's.

 

[carled]

Ha. Thanks WoodYouLike. Been reading some of your other posts on this subject!

Trouble is, I just had one of those "oh damn" thoughts and called my wife to confirm. Even though there is a good gap to the bottom of the door, the hall carpet and the current wood floor level are about level. The wood floor is maybe a couple of mm lower. This means that we only have approx 15mm "depth" to play with before we create a small step up from the hall carpet to the new wood floor level in the living room.

Any step, even a couple of mm is going to be enough for both of my daughters to fall over it EVERY single time they walk through that door. They do not understand the concept of picking their feet up...

I'm getting the feeling that I may have to go for an engineered floor here, rather than the solid wood I want to go for. If I pull up the hall carpet to raise that floor, I then cause a problem with the inward-opening pvc front door... and there'd be a drop down in to the kitchen too...

How hard is it to whack off an inch or so of concrete floor then re-level it? Nightmare job?

 

[WoodYouLike]

Small steps can be solved with a 'ramp' threshold which creates a gentle sloop.
Other solution: experience makes the master let them trip, that'll teach 'm to pick up their feet. (This seems to be a really typical English 'fear', tell me, do they 'trip' over the threshold at the front or back door?)

 

[carled]

tell me, do they 'trip' over the threshold at the front or back door?

Every. Bloody. Time. Honest!

 

[WoodYouLike]

So, in that respect they are used to tripping! Don't see your 'new' tripping problem then.

 

[carled]

Normally when walking into the house, they're not carrying drinks/plates/breakable items... when going from kitchen into hall into living room, however...

So what sort of height difference is reasonable to deal with using a threshold ramp? Up to an inch or less? Doesn't want to be over too long a distance or it'll cause issues with the door opening/closing, I'd guess.

 

[WoodYouLike]

'Standard' ramp/reducer thresholds can cover height difference up till 18mm