Hi, I'm currently finishing off a full house redecoration after the builders have finished and have hit a problem.
As part of the building work I extended out the back and to the side, the work finished and all looked good however the builder messed up the levels while completing the extension and although the flooring remained level throughout the French windows ended up miles too high. I saw an opportunity to install under floor heating in the kitchen and as a result raised the floor to an acceptable level compared to the windows but at the time I didn’t really think about what I was going to the remaining floor.
I've now reached that point and intend to install laminate on the whole of the ground level, however the difference between the concrete/ floorboards and the newly tiled kitchen is 3.2cm, my laminate plus underlay is 13mm so need to take up 19mm somehow.
Has anyone faced the same problem before and achieved a successful result or can anyone offer any advice?
I should also mention that I need to raise the floor up on approx 60 square metres (45 metres of floorboard and 15 metres of concrete)
My current thoughts are;
A: Overboard the whole lot with 18mm flooring grade chipboard, screwed down on the timber sections and glued/ floating on the concrete (over a DPM of course) - I've seen this approach, for the concrete bit, on numerous solid wood flooring website's so as to allow the wood to be nailed to something.
B: Overboard the timber sections with 18mm flooring grade chipboard and use self leveler to bring up the concrete bits to the same level.
I prefer A: for a number of reasons, firstly its one job across the whole floor and secondly it should make the floor sound the same across all parts of the floor when walked on.
My dilemma is whether floating chipboard over concrete (and then floating laminate above that) is a workable solution or not. Appreciate that the floor probably needs to be bump/ hole free to ensure no deflection.
I’ve already considered a few other things such as XPS foam etc but have discounted these as I’m fairly sure they’ll compress over time and make the laminate sag in places, and might also result in a very springy floor – but I could be wrong…
Any advice/ thoughts appreciated.
As part of the building work I extended out the back and to the side, the work finished and all looked good however the builder messed up the levels while completing the extension and although the flooring remained level throughout the French windows ended up miles too high. I saw an opportunity to install under floor heating in the kitchen and as a result raised the floor to an acceptable level compared to the windows but at the time I didn’t really think about what I was going to the remaining floor.
I've now reached that point and intend to install laminate on the whole of the ground level, however the difference between the concrete/ floorboards and the newly tiled kitchen is 3.2cm, my laminate plus underlay is 13mm so need to take up 19mm somehow.
Has anyone faced the same problem before and achieved a successful result or can anyone offer any advice?
I should also mention that I need to raise the floor up on approx 60 square metres (45 metres of floorboard and 15 metres of concrete)
My current thoughts are;
A: Overboard the whole lot with 18mm flooring grade chipboard, screwed down on the timber sections and glued/ floating on the concrete (over a DPM of course) - I've seen this approach, for the concrete bit, on numerous solid wood flooring website's so as to allow the wood to be nailed to something.
B: Overboard the timber sections with 18mm flooring grade chipboard and use self leveler to bring up the concrete bits to the same level.
I prefer A: for a number of reasons, firstly its one job across the whole floor and secondly it should make the floor sound the same across all parts of the floor when walked on.
My dilemma is whether floating chipboard over concrete (and then floating laminate above that) is a workable solution or not. Appreciate that the floor probably needs to be bump/ hole free to ensure no deflection.
I’ve already considered a few other things such as XPS foam etc but have discounted these as I’m fairly sure they’ll compress over time and make the laminate sag in places, and might also result in a very springy floor – but I could be wrong…
Any advice/ thoughts appreciated.
