Hi all,
I am going to install the glue-less "click together" hard wood in one carpeted room and in another room that has vinyl squares. Both the carpeting and vinyl are over standard concrete slab in good condition.
In the vinyl room, can I put the self-leveling liquid stuff down over the vinyl and then the underlayment, or should I take the vinyl up first ? Its not hard to take up (some of the squares almost pop up). But a guy in the flooring store said to leave the vinyl since it will act like a moisture barrier.
In the carpeted room, it was newly painted. When taking the carpeting up if I remove the baseboards there will be undoubtedly be some cosmetic repair in repainting, renailing, etc. in addition to the labor of pulling the baseboards off and reinstalling.
I was wondering if i could just go around the perimeter with a sharp carpet knife and cut the carpeting all along the baseboards as close in as possible and then take the carpet out before installing the wood floors, e.g. leave a very little strip of carpeting under the baseboards and avoid taking the baseboards off in the first place. I would think the carpet remaining under the baseboards would be hidden by the quarter round I would be using anyway to cover the gap between the flooring strip closest to the baseboard and the basebaord. I know this space is supposed to allow for some expansion of the wood flooring, but it seems like just a little carpeting strip under the baseboards wouldn't impede this. Am I just lazy and need to pull all the baseboards ? Sure don't want to if I don't have to. Haven't look, but maybe the carpeting tack strips would stick out too far and preclude my theoretical cutting technique.
Advice ?
Thanks,
Bob

Pull the carpet out from underneath the baseboards. It should not be too difficult. Touch up painting is normal when removing old flooring and installing new. If you don't want to remove the baseboards, then you will need to install baseshoe molding between the new wood flooring and the existing baseboards. You can lay a floating floor over your existing vinyl flooring squares. Those click together floors are floating floors and fairly easy for the DIYer. Follow the instructions that come with it, to the letter.

There us no reason here to remove the baseboards or cut the carpet. Take some pliers and go to a corner and pull up on it... you will see the tack strips

If you have any flattening to do using a Cementitious compound you will have to remove the vinyl tiles first.

How do you tell if your vinyl floor (or I suppose even your concrete surface if you pull the vinyl up) is flat enough that you don't need to do any flattening with a "cementitious" compound ?

Bob

Spell check please! Those would be some heavy "titious"

I can't spell worth a hoot

Bob, by your post I thought you had already checked for flatness and were planning to use an SLC over the tiles. You need very long straight edge and map out the floor to see if there are any humps or low spots you need to address prior to installing the floor.

Thanks Jerry, I'll check the leveling.

Assuming its level, still torn between pulling up the vinyl squares or not. My brother in law said they could hear the vinyl underneath the click floor in spots sticking and unsticking to the concrete (I assume) or maybe to the floor. A couple vinyl tiles just popped up when I was testing to see how hard they were to remove, so if they're not making noise yet I guess from the iffy adhesion to the concrete it may only be a matter of time before they loosen even under the wood floor. It looks like they'd be very easy to pull up, but I was just wondering if the moisture barrier benefit of leaving the vinyl was worth the risk.

If you leave the vinyl and its level, do you just put an underlayment over the vinyl (and exactly what IS the underlayment- a felt or like a foam carpet pad ?) If you pull the vinyl and the concrete is level, same question. You just put this underlayment stuff on it and that's all before laying the floor ? The store guy said you put some self leveling glop on there before the underlayment, but I assumed that was ONLY if the floor wasn't reasonably level.

Thanks for the input. I'll probably be uploading some pics when I get close to tackling, as I'm also a little unclear the direction to go in- there is an oblong (vinyl tiled) room about 20x10 and a short (about 4 ft.) doorway leading into a 12x12 room.

Bob

Vinyl tiles that are loose have no moisture barrier benefit. Regardless, for warranty purpose you still have to roll out 6 to 8 mil poly 1st, then the underlayment goes over the poly. They make 3in1 underlayments (padding) but i don't totally trust them.

Do a search on here for concrete slab flattening, high spots, low spots, ect.