timber floor - glued or floated?

mise_mise

Hi all... I'm coming to this stage finally, just wondering would it be better to glue the engineered timber to the concrete floor or float it on the 3mm foil insulation?

iamlegend2008

Hi

I faced the same choice. My friend (who does floors for a living in the US) stated that a floating floor was perfectly acceptable but if it was a house we was going to live in himself he would glue it. His justification was that there would be less noise from a glued floor.

Be advised though that the glue is not cheap at upto 100 euros a tin and the person who lays the floor will charge extra for glueing.

Good Luck.

antiskeptic

iamlegend2008 wrote: »

Hi

I faced the same choice. My friend (who does floors for a living in the US) stated that a floating floor was perfectly acceptable but if it was a house we was going to live in himself he would glue it. His justification was that there would be less noise from a glued floor.

Be advised though that the glue is not cheap at upto 100 euros a tin and the person who lays the floor will charge extra for glueing.

Good Luck.

How are you supposed to take the floor up in the future? And would you have a lot of removing old glue before being able to lay new floor?

mise_mise

Thanks for that guys... I'm kinda leaning towards the glued solution and hopefully i'll not have to take it back up any time soon!!!

CJhaughey

I wouldn't put any floor down directly onto concrete without some kind of vapour barrier between the wood and the concrete screed.
Engineered wood is more stable than solid but it is essentially just a thick veneer on plywood. It will still move a lot as moisture comes out of the screed.
Floating a floor is preferable for this reason alone.

NickTellis

CJhaughey wrote: »

I wouldn't put any floor down directly onto concrete without some kind of vapour barrier between the wood and the concrete screed.
Engineered wood is more stable than solid but it is essentially just a thick veneer on plywood. It will still move a lot as moisture comes out of the screed.
Floating a floor is preferable for this reason alone.

I put down about 95 m2 of semi-solid maple flooring in our house. Decided to float the lot over a vapour barrier and underlay with a 10 mil gap all around the wall edges and haven't had a single problem in over 7 years (touch wood). As mentioned, I'd be wary of glueing it directly to a concrete slab/screed as the floor needs to be able to "breathe" so some movement, however slight, is inevitable.

mise_mise

If one was to seal the floor prior to stick the engineered timber, would that make any difference to the outcome? The shop maintains that glueing is the way to go, cutting out on any movement!!!!

CJhaughey

mise_mise wrote: »

If one was to seal the floor prior to stick the engineered timber, would that make any difference to the outcome? The shop maintains that glueing is the way to go, cutting out on any movement!!!!

You show me the wood that doesn't move when exposed to moisture.

ninjaBob

mise_mise wrote: »

Hi all... I'm coming to this stage finally, just wondering would it be better to glue the engineered timber to the concrete floor or float it on the 3mm foil insulation?

I've taken up my wooden floors 3 times now, if I had glued them to the floor my options would have been very limited. In the long term the wooden floors will be damaged and you may want to try and replace some boards or even taken them up completely, which you are very limited to if you glue them.

We only glued at locations where the wood met another surface. Eg wood -> laminate or wood - > tile

adne

Resurrecting this guys, what are your opinions on glueing or floating an 18mm engineered floor over ufh?

DOCARCH

Over UFH best to glue.

Sligoronan

What kind of eng floor? What rooms ? What do u want to glue it to. I glued mine but then again I hope mine will be down for as long as I am around.