My wife and I are preparing to install a glue-down engineered floor (tongue and groove) on a cement subfloor. This is our first wood floor installation. We have some patching and leveling to do on the cement subfloor and think we can do it. I am uncertain though, on how to fix the old form boards from the sunken living room that rise to meet the cement floor, and how to deal with a wood stake that was left in the slab. We plan on using a stair nose that was made for the flooring along the edge of the riser and then flooring on the face of the riser. The problem is that the old form boards are not level with the cement floor, and in some cases, as you can see in the pictures, are so roughly cut that the stair nose will not lay flat.

Can I caulk the cracks and pour a self leveling compound over them if it fits into the leveling that is required on some of the subfloor? Should I try to cut the boards straight and add wood to the top that is level with the floor? Or should I remove them completely? Should I replace them?

Here is a link to the pictures

http://www.hardwoodflooringtalk.com/gal ... p?album=16

The gouges in the cement floor are from removing tile and the thin set. The risers used to have carpet on them. Thanks for any and all advice.

Jeff and Carey

A couple of questions first, if I may.

Was there a bad leak or flooding in your home? Was that slab always in that condition?

The reason I ask is the large holes in the sheetrock where the baseboards were. Those seem uncommonly large, like someone was trying to get air in there. And the slab is in poor shape. I don't think I've seen a finish job on concrete that bad. It appears a demolition took place. For the concrete, I'd suggest skim coating the entire slab. For those wood risers, if they're solid, just glue some wood furring strips to the top to bring the wood even with the concrete. You could even have the furring strips a little proud then sand them flush.

Yes, the holes are from dehumidifying after a flood a couple of years ago. The concrete had tile on it and I had to chisel it off. The thinset was difficult. The gouges are where the hammer/chisel tool dug in. I'm planning on patching the gouges. What is skim coating? I assume it's a cement mixture of some sort?Furring strips may be what we do on the risers. Thanks for the help and reply.