Should engineered wood flooring be glued to a concrete slab?
cgastudio
| Posted in Green Products and Materials on
The builder wants to glue engineered wood flooring onto a new concrete floor, over a primer. Is this wise?
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Replies
Whatever product you use should have a spec. Make sure they follow it. The most recent new house I built, our flooring contractor failed to do so, and the floor rotted away in an unbelievably short amount of time. We ended up pulling it, grinding the slab, and laying a floating floor instead.
Gluing engineered hardwood to a new slab seems like a terrible idea. That concrete is full of water that it will emit for quite a while as it cures. Especially if you've insulated under the slab and around the perimeter (good), the only remaining drying path for all that water is upwards through the floor. But if you seal it off with primer and glue before the water is all gone, it's going to bubble through the glue, warp the floor, and make it rot. I agree with Dan: a floating floor seems like a much saner idea here. The labor costs are probably lower too. It's really easy to do.
Better yet: wait a longer time before doing the finish flooring.