Hi,
I live in the Pacific Northwest. I just bought an unit in an old 1907 boarding house that has been converted to condos. I live on the second floor. The existing floor is fir. There is settling, its not horribly unlevel, but has some bowed areas. Per condo rules we need to meet certain sound insulation specs so can't go with original floor.

Below is some conflicting info i have been battling with:
My preference would be to put in solid (maybe even getting my hands on some recycled maple gym flooring salvaged from schools):
However, i've been told:
-you can't nail down into the existing wood floors
-new flooring really needs to go in the direction of the original floor, which it appears is a very bad idea (or does direction only apply to joists?)
-nail down thru those acoustic underlayments
-i've also heard you have to level
-thus i have ruled this option out, however, one unit put in 3/4" prefinished Brazilian cherry over a thick acoustic underlayment and nailed it down to existing wood foors in the same direction, they also did not level as they assume the new wood will conform to the old wood which is fine by them, because leveling the floor might make everything else look out of wack (there floors look great)
...so... what i have decided to go with is Bruce Coastal Woodland Maple Natural engineered floating floor (you glue the peices together, but you don't attach to subfloor) over acoustical underlayment. Is this really a good option, i read someone say they try and stay away from Bruce, it came highly recommended to me? Do i have to level? If i do, i've been told to make sure it is not cementitious and needs to be something that will move with the original fir flooring, okay, i can do that, but does it matter if i level, as someone else just pointed out that the building is going to keep on settling, won't it eventually get gaps anyway, especially since this engineered wood is so sturdy?
Any suggestions, clarity you can offer would be very much appreciated.
What would you experts out there do if it was your place???
Very stressed,
Aimee
Seattle, WA

Floating plywood subfloor, over cork underlayment, then fasten into the floating subfloor.

By any chance, is your name Luca?




Sorry, I couldn't resist


Seriously, are you going to do this yourself? Or hire out? One thing you could do is have a measurement taken from Home Depot (they sell Bruce). HD will send an estimator out to your house. They will be able to tell you EXACTLY, in a quote, what you will need to do the job. HD usually doesn't charge for the estimate and written quote and you need not buy from them. It may be cheaper than you thought just to have them install it....but if nothing else it will give you some guidelines for installation. Good Luck!!

I live in Snohomish by the way

should i level under the floating plywood, if so what should i use?
can i put a floating floor over the floating subfloor?

thanks so much