How To Install Hardwood Floor Over Gypcrete

As stephen mentioned in a floating install your substrate needs to be as flat as possible if not your floating floor will have excessive bounce.

How to install hardwood floor over gypcrete.

Before installing any wood floor over concrete you ll need a moisture barrier. It will extend up the wall for about 2 to 3 inches creating a bowl where your wood floor stays dry and protected. Many homeowners install hardwood flooring over gypcrete instead of tearing out the flooring material and using a subfloor layer of plywood and then the hardwood. At present customers desiring a solid wood installation over gypcrete substrates can install a floating plywood subfloor over the gypcrete to be used as a secure nailing base.

The homeowner would like real hardwood preferebly american cherry installed without building up the floor due to radiant heat installed in the gypcrete. The planks go down fast over virtually any material concrete plywood sheet vinyl even ceramic tile. The hardwood floor is typically installed over the gypcrete without a true subfloor layer. We are sealing the gypcrete this week and would like to know our options for gluing down or installing real hardwood floors.

A layer of asphalt paper or another thin sublayer can be laid over the gypcrete. Unlike traditional solid wood strips a floating floor isn t nailed down. The quickest way to get new wood underfoot is to install a floating floor. Traditional solid wood naildown products have never been recommended over gypcrete.

However one work around solution for nailing solid hardwood over gypcrete would be to incorporate a floating plywood nailing base over sheet plastic. And even the best floating floor will have some bounce to it it s the biggest drawback to a floating floor. Gypcrete is not a suitable nailing base to attached wood floorings. How to install a wood plank floor over concrete wood floor over concrete details lay a plastic moisture barrier and then screw 3 4 in.

Several popular methods of applying plywood over cement are detailed in our hardwood installation instructions and on our website. Fortunately powernail sent me their new model 2000f 20ga. This nailer is much smaller than a traditional hardwood flooring nailer and doesn t require a mallet to hit the nail gun and shoot the nails. Instead the planks are either glued or snapped together.

I did a glue down over a gypcrete floor that had radiant heat tubing buried in it. Installing hardwood floors over gypcrete posted in general discussion on may 16 1999 02 58am even if you place sleepers on the subfloor and distribute the pex between them you ll still have some ends of the t g hardwood pieces landing over gypcrete rather than a sleeper. Watch this video to see how easy it is. Typically it is sheets of plastic laid on the slab and taped at the seams with waterproof tape.