Hopefully someone can help me.

I have a condominium and I want to put down an engineered wood floor, which I knw can be glued. Moisture is not my problem either.

My prroblem is that my subfloor is not a normal hard shiny confrete floor. It is a chalky type floor that is kind of disty in nature. Someone told me they think is is "gypsum" and is used in condos as a fire and sound barrier?.?

Anyway, unlike solid concrete, this floor is possible to chip away at with a crewdriver for example.

My question is: Will the wood floor (engineered wood) properly stick to this type of floor, assuming hte right glue is used, or will the "chalkiness" make the sticking difficult?

Has anyone elese has this situation, and how did you proceed and what were the results.

Thanks,

Joe

I personally won't glue to a lightweight gypcrete substrate. I'll decline bidding on that job, if they demand it be gluedown.


Now a floating floor will work, and is the only type of wood installation I would recommend, over gypcrete.

Thanks for the input.

But if you could clarify for me. Why wouldn't you do it? What is the negative that could happen?

Thanks again.

Joe

Quite simply, the adhesive will not bond to dusty, chalky surfaces, which is what gypcrete 's properties are. A floater is your best bet. No adhesive will work on gypcrete.

Gypcrete is also a very watery pour, it will crack and crumble severely as it dehydrates.

It can also be very high in moisture emissions because of the watery pour when it is fairly new.