I am considering several homes in one neighborhood for purchase and I am trying to calculate the potential cost to install engineered or hardwood flooring in any one of them, as well as the costs of removing the existing floors. I would appreciate help.

One home has beautiful random width flooring that appears to be brand new. The seller claims it is "hardwood", but my agent questions that because the house is on a slab and she says it is rare in that area for hardwood to be placed over a slab. She thinks it is an engineered floor. If we bought this house, we would not have to do anything.

One home has carpet laid over an existing parquet floor. The owner says the parquet is under the carpet in the living room, dining room, den, and hallways, but not the bedrooms. We did not notice a height transition from the carpet in the hallways to the bedrooms which supposedly have carpet over plywood. The carpet installer must have put extra padding in the bedrooms to compensate for the height of the parquet in the hallways so that there is no noticible transition.

Now, obviously the carpet has to come out if we put in hardwood or engineered flooring and we need to calculate that cost into our total cost, but what about removing the parquet flooring? What is involved there and what cost should we expect? I've never run into parquet flooring before so I don't even know if it is glued down or nailed down.

Also, there is a noticeable "ridge" in the carpet in the living room. I knelt down and ran my hand over it and it seems as if the parquet has separated there and is turned up at a seam. Is this just a sign of wear (the parquet was probably put down 30 years ago or is this a sign of water damage that leaked through to the parquet?

Thanks.

Engineered wood floors are real "hardwood" floors. She is probably referring to solid floors, which wouldn't be used on a slab. Engineered floors are perfectly fine..their construction makes them far more stable than solid floors, so they aren't as affected by swings in temp and humidity, and can last just as long as solid floors with proper maintenance and periodic recoating. Depending on the thickness of the veneer and the type of topcoat, most can be sanded and refinished at least one time as well. I wouldn't consider engineered hardwood flooring a reason to pass on the house if you like the looks of it and everything else.

Parquet flooring can be engineered or solid. If it was installed 30 years ago, the adhesive used back then MAY have become brittle. If so, that would make removing the parquet tiles easier. But even if the parquet flooring comes up easy enough, getting the adhesive removed is still another task. There are soybean removers that are supposed to work well but are sorta expensive. As I see it, if you purchased the home with the parquet flooring and wanted to install another type of wood floor, you would either need to remove the carpet, pad, parquet and adhesive OR, remove the carpet and pad and install a floating floor over the parquet.

Believe me, you dont want to go over the parquet wether or not its over plywood or concrete, well especially concrete.

I think I would remove the parquet if I put in any other kind of wood floor since if I understand it correctly, the parquet is in the form of a tile and any tile could loosen or work loose over time, therefore increasing the chance of damaging the wood floor I put over it.

My concern here is the cost and difficulty of removing the parquet. The two houses in question happen to be the same model from the same builder and are both about 1400 sqaure feet of total space, so maybe 1250 or so of flooring space that we would cover with some sort of hardwood. The one with the carpet and parquet is $12000 less than the one that already has hardwood. I've gotten quotes of $8 to $12 a square foot for various wood flooring options, so I may save $12000 by buying the house with carpet and parquet underneath it, but I'm going to spend the $12000 again to put down floors. It seems to be almost a wash. That's why I'm asking the questions.

I appreciate the insight!

Yea, if you float over concrete, you have to use an underlayment foam with a moisture vapor barrier..that parquet laying under the vapor barrier will just hold any moisture eminating from the slab, and you're looking at all kinds of potential problems then.

I had a designer spec floating over parquet on concrete but didn't listen to me. I got paid to pull it up and redo that area luckily. The consumer was more worried about the dust from taking up the parquet originally. But then denied they ever said that later when there was a problem. Course the designer did not get that in writing or waiver it.

Although NOFMA for years has said it is ok to install hardwood over an older hardwood floor, in retrospect, it is better to remove the parquet than float over it, especially if the parquet is on concrete. My bad for suggesting you could float a floor over it.