Hardboard on floorboards prior to Carpet Fitting

Hi just had the whole house refurbished...

Seen the builder place 3.5mm hardboard down on the first floor in someone else's house was thinking of doing the same. BTW i'm having carpets laid

- Is it worth the head ache my floors are reasonably even but was thinking it will stop creaking in the future offer sound insulation and better carpet feel.

is it worth it ?

You only need to line the floor with hardboard or ply if the floors are mildly uneven or worse, you won't gain any benefits of elimnating squeaks by doing the above, nor will it really help with sound insulation nor will it benefit the carpet UNLESS the floor is a little uneven, in which case the carpets will look smoother, and wear better. If the floors are ok, I would personally use the money to upgrade to a natural felt underlay or combo underlay like Axminster Axfelt65, especially if you are currently looking at installing a carpet on puFoam or Rubber Waffle/Foam.

thanks for the response..
actually now you mention it i'm going for the cloud9 stuff.

mainly because it's soft bare in mind it's not going on high traffic area just bedrooms and landing..

yes the boards are fairly even and I will be securing any lose old boards..

I was hoping the boards would give the house a more solid feel

Hardboard won't make the floor feel 'better built'

The landing is a fairly intensive localised wear layer,especially the top nose and turn area above the stairs and entrance to bathroom and main bedroom.

A Natural felt underlay will perform better than cloud9 and won't lose it's support,it will even the floors out, be more supportive and give the install a more solid feel, it won't be rock hard. The carpets will also recover better from both traffic pressure and furniture pressure and natural felt will also be more insulating than Cloud9/puFoam. If ultimately you want a deep soft spongy feel, then 11mm Cloud9 style product will achieve that. If you want a more supportive feel and better wear/appearence retention with better insulating properties then the Felt would be the way to go.

If the floorboards are generally level, the felt will even out any uneveness better than other types of underlay, if you wanted to support any underlay a little better over gentle uneveness without going to the expense and higher fitted carpet height of Hardboard or Ply then it might be worth considering installing paperfelt before fitting the underlay and carpets. This card style product is/was generally used to stop dirt/dust coming up through floorboards, but acts well as extra support between underlay and floorboards.

thanks for your help..

won't bother with the hardboard doesn't seem worth it..

will look into the underlay though at least in the hallway

Good plan, let us know how you get on.

If the underlay is honestly priced, there should be very little difference in price between 11mm puFoam and Axfelt, around £7m2 retail.