Reading this could seriously damage your sanity - flooring help needed please

[farkinada]

Hi,

thanks in advance If you get to the end of this, if you can help I will email you a beer.

130 square metres, currently about half tiled and half carpeted, there are some small differences in floor heights of different rooms.

She who must be obeyed would prefer wood (good laminate will do) throughout and has suggested laying the laminate on top of the tiles (I guess you can do pretty much what you like in the privacy of your own home). Following this path would create approx 50mm step between the tiled and un-tiled floors. The un-tiled floors are concrete and there is a DPM.

Is it possible to lay a celotex type product (say 20mm) direct to the concrete, cover it with 18 mm ply,OSB or chipboard and then approx 10mm laminate?

If laying on the tiles is not recommended, (ie a disaster waiting to happen) I could take them up but an element of bodge would be ok, why change the habits of a lifetime?

If the tiles came up would it still be acceptable to lay the insulation/board and laminate throughout?

I don't have any organs in sellable condition so the 130sq metres means I am looking for the lowest cost effective solution.

Thanks for getting this far, hoping to milk your collective wisdom.

 

[alan333]

Lifting tiles won't cost anything.

 

[farkinada]

Thanks Alan, in an effort to condense the question I left out 2 issues. 1. its a very old property and I don't know what insulation already exists, maybe an additional 20-25mm won't make an enormous difference but hopefully it wont hurt. 2. I am not as young as I used to be.

 

[JP_]

I think the idea is good - save energy not removing tiles and get part of the house with better insulation. I am not sure if you could just put boards on top of insulation though - works OK when concrete poured over, but I'd be worried that it might get a bit wobbly. Maybe batten the floor so chipboard flooring can be screwed down onto it?

 

[farkinada]

Thanks Jonbey.

2.4 x 1.2 18mm OSB weighs about 34kg, I didn't think that there would be much slidey movement (it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong though). I was perhaps more concerned about compression so a thickish/more rigid board to spread any load seemed like a plan, even though this adds to the downward pressure. Sadly I don't have room in the budget to do the job "properly" even though I understand this probably eliminates mishaps!

 

[JP_]

yeah, i was thinking about compression. It might be OK, but I probably would not risk it.

 

[Notch7]

You can lay laminate over tiles if they are pretty flat.

Ive seen on here that a floating floor is possible, so maybe 20mm or 25mm celetex, tape the joints. You would need t&g flooring chipboard which fully interlocks on top.

A decent underlay for the laminate is worth doing, esp over tiles.

Like this stuff:
https://www.tradepriced.co.uk/timbertech2_acoustic_gold_laminate_underlay.html

 

[farkinada]

Thanks for your input Notch7