Hi,

I've got a parquet floor all over the first floor. I want to install a new nailed hardwood floor (mirage classical) 3/4 inch.

Parquet floor was installed about 30 years ago, it is glue with white stuff on a plywood. There is no concrete under. I tried to remove some tile in the closet, but the first layer of the plywood is coming with the tile.

I think I found a good spot to start the removal process, there is some loose tile at the edge of the parquet floor in the room after the removal of the molding. I know it's not an easy task and I want to do the best for the installation.

So the question is: Should I remove my old parquet floor or nail the new hardwood floor over the old parquet floor?

What are the problems that can occur if I nailed it over the parquet floor?

if you need some pics I can take some tonight.

thanks.

I have found in the past, when attempting to nail through parquet, the slats have a tendency to split since most of the grain is vertically oriented. When this happens you have a squeak that cant be fixed.

NO! It is not adviseable to go over it.

Hi,

Thanks for the tips.

I started to remove a lot of tiles, at some place the first layer of the plywood came with the tile. It's not a huge gap, but the plywood won't be flat after the removal process.

I was wondering what should I do with that?

Is there some sort of compound that I could put everywhere on my plywood so I don't have to replace the plywood or put another plywood over.

Since you have begun the removal process, I can't be of much help there. I'm not a fan of leveling compounds underneath nailed down floors. I would consider 30 lb. asphalt roofing felt, stapled down to stay in place.

As far as installing over an old hardwood floor, this IS an acceptable alternative according to NOFMA/NWFA IF done correctly. As far as parquets, it depends on the type of parquet. If the parquet is a solid, it probably is not a good candidate for installing a nailed down floor. However, there are some engineered parquets that are, in essence, nothing more than squares of plywood. If these are very well attached by an adhesive to the subfloor, then one should be able to install directly over them after the installation of the flooring felt. I would recommend stapling the existing parquets squares down to insure none are loose. I actually did this in a home a couple of years ago and everything worked out just fine.

Gary, I'm certain I've read in a NOFMA publication or NWFA manual that going over parquet is frowned upon if not a totally unapproved method. Nor have I read anywhere where it says it is an approved underlayment. But I ain't going looking for it. lol

Maybe you're thinking if the existing parquet is over a slab Stephen? I know that's frowned on even if you float something over it. In any case if one were to install a thin plywood UL over the parquet that would be my first choice. Separation is a good thing.

Unless the plywood "separates" the finished floor entirely from the parquet, I wouldn't be doing it.

Let me try to explain. Here's the scenario I am referring to.

The house is a typical raised wood subfloor with a crawl space. The subfloor is 3/4" T&G plywood subfloor panels at right angles to the floor joists 16" OC. Pretty standard wood subfloor.
Now, over this, was glued down an engineered Bruce, Sykes or Anderson parquet floor of 12" squares. The parquet squares are 1/2" thick and comprised of 5 layers of cross ply oak. They are glued down directly to the old subfloor with what appears to be Bruce LP. They are not loose whatsoever except in a few spots near the edges/walls. This floor covers the entire house except the bathroom and a small kitchen. Any attempt at removal caused delamination of the parquet and the subfloor. The customer wanted ( actually had already purchased ) 4" solid 3/4"T&G white oak flooring. As I see it, options are:

1) return the flooring for floating floor. Customer would not hear it. Did NOT want a floating floor.
2) Attempt to remove parquet, damaging the existing subfloor in the process and necessitating subfloor repairs and/or replacement. Furthermore, the LP adhesive left large, hard glue ridges that would either need covering with more plywood or removal by sanding.

Now, let's think this through and try to think outside the box. When you came across a questionable subfloor, isn't it the case that sometimes you say it will need an additional layer of plywood. You know this is true. So, then many of you say, well, to be really thorough, it should be glued, as well as stapled/nailed/screwed. And the plywood recommended is usually 1/2" thick. Well, in this scenario, there is already "plywood" there, glued down. It simply needs stapling well. Now I realize this "plywood" does not have the same shear properties that larger pieces would have. But we're not using this "plywood" to add strength or rigidity to the subfloor. The existing subfloor is strong and rigid enough. If we remove this existing "plywood", we would simply be putting back more of the same but in larger pieces.

So, to save time, money, labor and materials this young couple did not have, I decided to staple every parquet square down to the existing wood subfloor using 16 gauge staples with a 1.25" leg and 7/16" crown ( a common construction staple size ). Staples were placed every 4" around the perimeter of each 12" parquet block and in a 4" grid pattern in the field. This further secured them to the subfloor. The entire floor was checked for flat and any high spots were sanded down. The substrate was flat. Over this was installed the basic 15 lb. asphalt saturated felt. And BTW, the crawl space was checked for moisture and is was bone dry. This was verified with a pin style moisture meter, as was the subfloor, the plywood parquet and the new white oak flooring. There were no drainage issues as the lot drained nicely, no evidence of flooding ever and all downspouts were hooked up to drain lines.

So, given all this, are you saying that the parquet should have been removed instead? Or more plywood added, to play havoc with the appliances, doors, exterior thresholds, etc?

Personally, I think my solution made sense in this case. Sure, I could have "walked", or insisted it be done another way, loosing the job in the process. It has been three years and the floor has performed normally, as I have been in contact with the customers about doing more work. Sometimes, I think we need to come up with creative solutions for our customers that we feel confident about. What say you all?

Not at all Gary, but you are referring to one type of parquet, and I am raving on (lol) about a completely different animal. Finger joint slats usually oak, sometimes birch or maple, but invariably cut from milling rips and usually vertically grain oriented.
What you are talking about is nothing more than plywood and would accomplish the same task as 4 X 8 sheets of it. Even better usually since it is trowel glued in place.
The stuff you mention was in limited use in my neighbourhood, while parquet (as I know it) was so popular during the 70's-80's that I forgot there even was such a product as what you are referring to.

Yeah Dennis, this is the type I referred to in my earlier post.



I know about that fingerblock parquet as well. I did tons of it here as well. Usually 5/16" thick, glued down and it was a solid in maple or oak. I've even seen it in walnut and teak. We also did some 3/4" solid T&G parquet as well. Some nailed, like herringbone, but usually glued down. Those solids are NOT good candidates to go over with a solid, for the reasons you mentioned. But you see, in California, slab construction was being used sparingly since the 30's. And got into full swing in the 50's. Since the FHA required homes to have a solid floor covering like lino or wood, manufacturers were coming up with ways to put wood floors in homes with concrete slabs. They first used solid 3/4" T&G types in either 9" or 12 " squares. Those were "glued" down with an asphalt mastic called cold bond or cut back. This was time consuming as the mastic could take days to flash off enough before installation could begin. with the advent of chlorinated solvent adhesives like Bruce LP and Franklin 911, manufacturers found they could glued "engineered" parquet down for less cost and time. Bruce, Anderson and Sykes were the big manufacturers of these engineered parquets with Bruce leading the pack. These were popular through the mid 80's. One can find very few of those types of floors anymore, with Hartco Pattern Plus being one of the last products one could fashion an engineered parquet pattern out of. Of course, there is still the 5/16" fingerblock available from Harris, though not the big seller it once was. And I haven't seen Hartco's or Bruce's prefinished 5/16" parquets in years.