What is the best way to fit a solid oak floor on concrete ?

The way I like to do it is to lay thin laminate foam down and cover all the concrete.

Cover the foam with a layer of 3/8 inch plywood so that the edges are parallel to the walls. Leave a quarter inch space between the sheets for expansion and stagger them so the ends don't line up.



Cut a 45 degree piece from a 4x8 sheet



and lay a second layer at 45 degrees to the room.



Fasten these two layers together with 5/8th inch brads. You are essentially making one sheet of 3/4 inch plywood the size of the room. The weight of it holds it in place. Using short cleats or staples you can now fasten any 3/4 inch flooring to this plywood.

This is similar to one system used to fasten gym floors in place over a huge concrete slab. The only difference is we put pads on the bottom of the first layer for the bounce needed, the plywood layers are 1/2 inch plywood and of course it it much larger than a residential application.

The only disadvantage is you gain 1 and a half inches in height.

I have never fixed it before, but I am sure that you can fit it as a floating floor on top of concrete. You need to put down some underlay, with a built in dpc! Then just fix the planks, as you would do with laminate, but get some good glue to glue them together, leave an expansion gap around the room and then bead around it, or cut the bottoms off the skirting if you want to. 

Tect:

Some of your replies make no sense, one is actually copied from an ezine article and another from hubpages. What gives?