Just wondering…since I’ve found very little about underlayment.

I might be floating my floor. Haven’t decided yet. Over the past couple of months, we have been visiting a lot of model homes for decorating ideas.

A lot of the homes had engineered hardwood floors glued and floated (according to the designers and sales staff – Southern California and concrete slabs). I have noticed as an average consumer, you can’t tell the difference between the two.

But being on this forum, gave me ammunition to know what to look for between the two types of installations (Glue/float). Glued down to concrete is harder to walk on. Much harder than non-engineered floors. Floating was much closer to solid hardwood planks.

A floating hardwood floor is nosier than glued down when walked upon with hard soled shoes. But not by much, and you would never notice the difference unless you were purposely looking for it.

I’ve gotten to the point now that I can tell by walling on the floors whether it is a glued or floating floor. And personally, I’ll have to say that the difference in feel greatly out weighs the very slight differences in sound. My wife just rolls here eyes at me. She is more concerned about the looks and does not notice a difference in sound or feel. Oh well….

Now the difference in sound and feel between Laminates and Engineered floors, glued or floated, is very apparent. You could tell which model home had laminates as soon as you opened the door. And the whole house seemed to loudly echo as you walked from room to room.

So I went through all that to ask about cork underlay.

1. Would a cork underlay completely neutralize the difference between floated and glued wood flooring?
2. Would you still need a moister barrier with cork underlay?
3. If you know would using something like Quiet Walk Acoustic Underlay http://www.soundprooffoam.com/quiet-walk.html be just as efficient as using cork with a moister barrio?
4. Can someone tell me, which do you think is the best for underlayment for a concrete sub floor.

Thanks all.