Remodeling a Kitchen Without Subflooring
Hello Community,
I’m working on renovating my 1905 house in Seattle. We’re moving the kitchen and making some updates and my question is about the lack of subfloor. We have original fir strip flooring with no subfloor underneath, just 1×4 t&g over joists (1 3/4″ x 5 1/2, 16″ oc, older thicker 2×6 than today). It’s been sanded a few times over the years but also probably had carpet or other flooring over it for long periods as well so not super thin. It’s a little uneven but mainly about 11/16-3/4″ avg thickness.
I’m trying to decide whether to do a light sanding, refinish and install our new kitchen on it. Or, rip it out, lay plywood subfloor and try to salvage enough of the old flooring to lay over the new subfloor.
Questions:
How thin, after sanding, should be the minimum to provide a solid structure?
Would you recommend leaving the strip flooring as the subfloor and laying new flooring over it or ripping out and laying plywood t&g?
Advice? Thanks!
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Replies
Pat,
Just seeking additional information that may help the experts? Are you in an active seismic area?
We are in a seismic zone in Seattle but this is a fairly small portion of the overall building's floor system. An addition of similar equal size to the old house is engineered and built to the latest standards.
Pat,
You should have a refinishing contractor evaluate your flooring. He/she should be able to tell you if it needs to be replaced. If it does (and it were my house), I would pull up the old flooring and install Advantech (glued and screwed) as a new subfloor. That will make that area more resilient and also provide a good base for the new flooring. Of course, you have to consider overall height since you don't want to introduce a tripping hazard at the transition points.
I have rebuilt my kitchen twice. You will not be happy if you use the old floor. When you start installing cabinets, you will wish that floor was dead flat and level. I would pull up the floor and re-frame the joist. Some of them will be bad. Then a subfloor. Just plan your finish floor so you get the depth right. LV tile is sure great in a kitchen. Maybe you can save the old flooring, have it planed a uniform thickness and reinstall.
Thanks y'all! I decided to pull out the fir strip flooring and put down plywood, glued and screwed. It feels much more solid and quiet. I thought about Advantech but it was twice the price and, from what I understand, people love it so much for it's weather resistance during the building process. I don't doubt it's a good product but my situation is a remodel with no exposure to weather so I didn't feel like it was worth the extra expense or drive to get it from a farther away yard.
We're hoping to reuse the salvaged flooring. Any tips, articles or Q&A's on how to make salvaged flooring work well? It's a little rough with some broken tongue and grooves.
How’s everything going? Have you finished the remodeling? We recently completed our kitchen remodeling with A Plus Marble https://www.aplusmarble.com/kitchen-remodeling/ , and I have to say, the results exceeded my expectations. Initially, I was a bit hesitant—especially when my wife insisted on having a marble countertop and a few other specific features. I wasn’t entirely sold on the idea at first, but now that it’s done, I’m really glad we went with it. The marble countertop, in particular, adds a touch of elegance and sophistication to the kitchen that I hadn’t anticipated. It’s not just about aesthetics, either—the quality and durability of the materials have made a big difference in how the space feels and functions