Installing A Floating Floor Over Concrete

Vinyl flooring is very durable and fits over most surfaces including concrete.

Installing a floating floor over concrete.

If the concrete slab is in very poor condition the best practice is to use a grinder or buffer with a concrete scraper over the entire surface before covering it with a layer of self leveling concrete. To help we re re sharing our tips for installing a basement flooring over a concrete surface. However many homeowners are disappointed to discover that solid wood flooring cannot be installed on a concrete slab. If you have some experience with installing flooring or are diy hobbyist it shouldn t take you more than a day to install vinyl plank flooring on concrete.

Clean the floor for glue down installation. Sadly moisture will ruin a floor unless necessary precautions are taken. Treated plywood to the concrete with concrete screws spaced every 16 in. A floating floor is simply a floor that does not need to be nailed or glued to the floor underneath it.

Laminate flooring is also fairly easy to install. Basement floors are notorious for becoming damp. Installing one might appear to be a frightening task but with proper preparation and planning any home improvement diyer can do it. Perhaps the easiest way to improve the insulation of a floating vinyl floor on concrete is to install a thermal underlayment preferably made of cork felt or a similar material.

If you do take those precautions you may end up installing multiple flooring options and spending thousands of dollars. Alternatively screw rows of treated 1x4s to the concrete 16 in. Many types of flooring can be installed over a concrete sub floor. Using a glue down floor is an option in above grade installation only since installation below.

The hardest part of the job is often cleaning and leveling the concrete base. It is one of the cheapest solutions and at the time of writing it could set you back just a few hundred bucks depending on the size of the area you are covering. Lay 6 mil polyethylene sheeting over the concrete to minimize moisture migration from the concrete up into the wood flooring. Although the flooring comes in a variety of forms planks are installable with a minimal amount of tools and measuring.

If you use an underlayment without a moisture barrier it s a good idea to install a sheet of plastic below it for insurance.