Hi, all…

I have a rather difficult and pressing situation, as you may well read below… Any help will be greatly appreciated!

I’m in my mid-twenties (read as: strapped for cash, like everyone else), and I’ve just purchased my first house: a HUD home. Luckily, though in this sense alone, I’m single, so moving into what’s basically a sleeping-on-a-cot-during-the-remodel situation was no huge deal for me. However, this ability to adapt doesn’t detract from my eagerness to make my home a showplace, one which I can cherish for years to come.



It’s a 1599 sq. ft. red brick ranch house, built in 1971, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, on a concrete slab (clay tile HVAC ducts in the slab), with a poured-concrete foundation, a big lot, and W-framed trusses forming a classy hip roof line. It measures 33’ x 66’. It tested negative for lead paint, though they looked at many different surfaces. It’s probably the most solid house I’ve ever stepped into. I’ve yet to see an insect out of place, or a drop of water in the vents. All but one of the windows appear to have been replaced in the 1990’s, with double hung vinyl. I’ve looked high and low on the brick lines, yet I can’t find a single crack in the brick, nor the mortar. My mortgage is for $100,000, but the insurance put its replacement cost at $169,000. The county appraises it at $128,800. As you probably guessed, I’m pretty happy with the fundamentals of the house, and my purchase. It’s in one of the top 3 suburbs of my city, with nationally acclaimed schools. All of this, and I actually was given a check for $1500 at closing (I did my homework, so to speak). I plan on staying in this house approximately 15 years, maybe longer.

Here’s the bad news: The house was vacant and sealed up for at least two months. “Someone had a temper” were the first words that came out of my whole house inspector’s mouth. Just about everything in the house is original and/or dilapidated to a degree that I want to replace it (e.g. someone kicked in most of the doors, breaking the jambs, including the front, back, garage, and bedroom doors). My whole house inspector found only about 6” of yellow stuff in the attic (the house is in south-western Ohio), and he suggested that I rush to get some more. He said I also need some fill dirt and downspout extensions to get the drainage under control. My radon guy reported that the radon level was “above the 4.0 threshold”, coming in at 4.8 pi/cu (I’m having a slab vent/fan combo installed in the garage). The kitchen cabinets don’t match, and some of the drawers are actually made of plastic, with no track to ride on! HVAC guy says that there’s about 5 years left in the current system, and that it’s only 85% efficient. The floor coverings are epic failures; the living room carpet was still damp for who knows what reason, when I pulled it up. The asbestos tester sampled nine surfaces, but found only one place where the evil substance turned up; the foyer and coat closet have a 12% 12x12” asbestos tile which lies under a hideous 12x12” ceramic tile.

Here’s the punch line: I’m going to rip out the wall that separates the kitchen, family, dining, living, and foyer rooms. I hired an experienced structural engineer to evaluate my plan. He was nearly gleeful at the sight of the 33’ trusses in my attic, and gave me a confident go-ahead.

Now (not a perfect plotting of the house, but a rough draft):


After (also a draft):


Now, I’m a lover of REAL hardwood flooring. I sometimes like to record (bands or my own musings), and I know from experience the value of warm hardwood floor in a prized recording. It would really be amazing, if I could rip out this wall, lay down some hardwood flooring, and make it a great room (read as: wannabe studio apartment in the center of my ranch house). I’d then put ceramic in the kitchen (it will be hardwood, if I have enough left over), and set about revamping the cabinets, ultimately, extending the kitchen area into the great room with a free-standing island. I’m going to do ceramic tile the bathrooms, and use Mohawk SmartStrand carpet in the bedrooms. I’m already making trips to the waste disposal in my truck, hauling old carpet and trim out of my evolving home!

I looked high and low for some cheap reclaimed or unfinished hardwood, and I finally scored it for 50 cents a square foot: 1000+ sq ft. of 3/4" thick, 2 1/4" wide hard maple tongue and groove, unfinished, for $500. The guy just doesn’t want it taking up space at his place any longer, so I’m going to U-Haul it back to my place from 60 miles away, tomorrow afternoon. He’s even throwing in 1500 sq. ft. of red rosin paper, though I’m unsure if I’ll even use it.

Here's some pics he sent me:






If you’ve made it this far, you probably are wondering why the back story. Well, here’s my issue: I need some expert advice on how to prep the many faces of my great room’s slab to lay down this hardwood, ASAP. My plan is to get the great room in great shape, then live in it, as a studio apartment of sorts, while I work on the bedroom-end of the house.

Here’s a list of what’s going on with the old flooring, and where:

1. Dining and living room areas: I took up the wet carpet and pad, under which, there is a pristine and unscathed slab (no cracks, not even hairline). I mopped this bare-slab area with water and bleach to disinfect.

2. Kitchen, laundry, and breakfast area: There are two layers of vinyl tile here, both of which tested negative for asbestos. The look as if they’ll come up very easily. The asbestos guy used hunks of tile with the black mastic still present on the back, for all of his tile samples. Therefore, I feel comfortable stripping this area to bare slab, though I’ll probably need some chemical assistance.

3. Utility closet, and family room area: When I saw this tile, I thought it surely would test positive for asbestos, but it didn’t. I’ve already removed most of the tile from this area, but the black mastic is still hanging around, taunting me. I’m using a sprayer with just water and detergent mixed, to mist both the material and the air above it, as I proceed with my demolition. I’m wearing gloves, an N95 respirator, closed safety goggles, and I’m trying to track down a HEPA cartridge respirator, as well.

4. Hallway, and the three bedrooms: Here there are simulated wood 12x12” vinyl tiles on black mastic, whose sampling tested negative for asbestos. In one of the affected bedrooms, there was a woven carpet pad that was backed by some sort of crumbling black foam rubber material (it smells!). I’m eager to get the tile up in that bedroom (the master bedroom) to rid the back rooms of this petroleum-like stench. These come up very easily, in many cases, unbroken.

5. Bathrooms: Both bathrooms have unlike tile on black mastic, but these tiles (and any mastic that came along for the ride) tested negative for asbestos. Though it’s not what I’m looking to do at the moment, I’ll be ripping this up and laying down ceramic, at some point.

6. Foyer, and foyer closet: This is the redheaded step child of the floor coverings in my house. The way I see it, there are, from top to bottom: well-secured ugly-duckling-designed Mexican-restaurant-decor ceramic tiles, some yet unseen adhesive, a cream-colored 12x12” asbestos-containing vinyl-like tiles, black mastic (perhaps, containing asbestos), and finally, the concrete slab.

The asbestos abatement folks quoted me $700 to “abate” the approximately affected 75 sq. ft. in the foyer and its soon-to-be-demolished closet. I am unclear, at the moment, how I might best install my beloved hardwood flooring, spanning areas 1, 2 (unlabeled, but it is the top right, in magenta), 3, and 6.

Here’s a graphic to explain where they’re at (I feel like I’m playing Clue)… The numbered areas coincide with the list just above, and the lightened area highlights the walls I want to remove. Remember, #6 is the asbestos-contaminated area...



I've been reading lots of websites about hardwood over slab, and I've yet to see anyone with a problem like mine. Ideas, anyone?

http://www.hardwoodinfo.com/display_art ... =PrintPage
http://www.fortifiber.com/pdf/install_g ... abar_b.pdf

Thanks a lot!

Joshua

Well, first let me say what a nice house and a great presentation of your situation. Love the pictures and 3D drawings.

As I see it, you have a few options. First, if you want to install that maple flooring, it should be nailed down. There are a few ways to do this:
1) You install 2 x 4 sleepers on the concrete ( they lay the flat way ) over 6 mil polyethylene plastic sheeting. The sleepers are typically laid 16" OC ( 12" OC is even better ). Then you nail the flooring directly to the sleepers. This is an old system and the finished height of your floor will be 2 and 1/4" above the concrete slab subfloor. Clearances for doors will most likely be a problem.
2) You install 3/4" plywood over the same 6 mil poly film and use 1&1/2 " fasteners to nail the flooring down. The plywood can be nailed or floated in 2' x 8' panels, leaving gaps of about 1/4" between the panels.
3) An alternative to the 3/4" plywood is the double layer floating plywood subfloor. One covers the slab with the plastic film and lays 1/2" plywood at 45 degrees to the direction of the flooring. Then one screws down another layer of 1/2" plywood perpendicular to the direction of the first layer. Use real short screws ( 1" or less ) . Over that, you install 15 lb. asphalt saturated roofing felt and nail down that maple flooring.

These last two ways will have a finished floor height of 1&1/2 to 1&3/4 inches above the surface of the slab. You will still probably encounter clearance issues with doors because your home wasn't built to take a 1.5" floor height. But it may work. You'll need to measure carefully

The maple flooring you bought looks to be a second grade of mostly shorts. Not the best stuff and usually used as a utility floor. It will work in your home but will require extra effort in the sanding and finishing phase. Probably in the installing phase as well.

The other option is to sell the maple and look to buy a prefinished engineered floor that can be floated. There are some decent imports in the $3.00 range. This would probably be no more expensive in the long run because you will not need to buy and install plywood or sleepers. Nor will you need to rent floor sanders and buy finishing products; all of which costs more than most realize. I've seen 1/2" to 5/8" imported ( read: Chinese ) prefinished engineered plank floors in 5" widths that can be floated over a nice foam cushion, starting at $3.00 a foot.The Floor Muffler underlayment is very good. This system will save you lots of time and probably money, plus you probably will not have any clearance issues with doors and appliances.

I would not recommend you attempt to glue down those maple boards directly to concrete. That is a whole different "ball of wax" that should only be left to very experienced pros.

Thanks for the encouragement. What you are saying makes worlds of sense.

I'm going to need to dwell on the subject for a few minutes to decide a way forward. Reselling this maple won't probably be hard, and I suspect I could even make something in the turnaround. I don't mind the work, but uber-expense is beyond my means.

With the engineered wood floating floor, will I still need to strip to absolutely bare concrete? I'm trying to come to terms with the asbestos in the foyer, under the existing ceramic, and find a way of dealing with it, in a way that's cheaper than $700, but only marginally less safe. Could I float the engineered floor over the non-asbestos black mastic part of the room (#3 in my numbered area list/image)?

Would you suppose that the maple I purchased would be nice enough to use in the bedrooms (where the doors heights are more forgiving?

Side note: http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/bar/1365176522.html

Does this look like a good buy?


I'm thinking this device isn't robust enough to do the sanding I'd require.. Thoughts?

Thanks,
Joshua

I can't say if the ceramic tile that's been laid over the asbestos tile will come up without taking some of the asbestos VAT ( vinyl asbestos tile ) with it. Another issue maybe that even if the ceramic came up without taking up the VAT, it would leave behind the thin set residue that would need to be cleaned up. If it were me, and I was younger, I would consider removing it myself. Do a little research on how to do it safely. You can probably do just what the asbestos abatement company will do, except you won't have the monitoring equipment. OR, even better, just pay them to do it and be done with it. Work some extra hours or weekends for your employer. Now if it weren't for the ceramic tile, you could just float a floor over the VAT. It's only about 1/8" or less in thickness and you could feather out the transition to the concrete pretty easily with Ardex Feather Finish or similar. But, the ceramic tile is the kicker. Getting that up and leaving behind a totally clean VAT probably isn't going to happen.



You're not going to want awkward transitions into the bedrooms with varying heights and different floors. If you want wood in the bedrooms, use the same as you use elsewhere.



You're correct. This will not cut it. You need a wood floor drum sander, an edger and a buffer to even think about doing correctly. In this economy, you're better off putting the sanding phase out to bid. But that's why I recommended a prefinished floor. You do not have to concern yourself with finishing the flooring. In your situation, it is probably the most economical way to go. If you had to rent all the tools to properly install and sand that floor, then add in the cost of plywood, sandpaper, nails, felt, and floor finish, not to mention applicators and all the various little items one needs, you're going to spend at least a dollar a square foot; probably more. And that's with you doing all the work, with the results most likely being questionable.

A decent engineered, prefinished import plank floor that can be floated is probably your best bet, given all the issues you are up against, IMO.

120 miles later.. I lugged the stuff to my house...

I'm a tile guy and not a wood guy; so I'm only here to respond about the asbestos and tile areas.
The tile will most likely pull up the VAT during demo as has been said. But there's no need for freaking out. The asbestos in the floorcovering is locked into the product. This isn't the same asbestos that was giving everyone cancer. The bad asbestos was the stuff they stuck around pipes and various other places and crumbled just by looking at it. The asbestos you have is locked into the product and as long as you don't destroy it during demo, your completely fine. By destroying, I mean pulverizing into dust. So do straight manual labor in this area. No power tools. Wet it down with water. Handscrape only.
For more info on this type of asbestos; check out the EPA's or OSHA's websites. They both have lots of info and correct disposal info. Then leave the cutback (black mastic) alone. You will not possibly remove it completely and there's no reason to. The asbestos is locked in and isn't going anywhere. Installing your new floor over it is called encapsulating it and is fine.

And as far as the areas that you plan on installing tile, NO CHEMICAL STRIPPERS! These can pull the stuff your trying to remove further into the slab which will be a bondbreaker for the tile.
Then when your ready to install, go to:
www.johnbridge.com/vbulletin
Best place on the web for tile info and help.

Black cutback adhesive, is a known big time bond breaker. If you read specifications, 100% will say the cutback must be removed to a faint stain on the concrete. Then products capable of encapsulation are to be used. There are some mortars that market themselves as being capable of going over the fine stain looking cutback residue left on the slab.
There are no adhesives that are compatible with cutback, except asphalt mastic.

Floorguy,
The cutback I meant was the stuff in the foyer where the wood was going. I was thinking that you guys were suggesting sleepers(?) and not a direct gluedown.

In the tile areas you would scrape it to a film but this is a hardwood forum.