I just moved in with my beautiful girlfriend to a condo in DC, and we were going to replace the carpeting
in our place with hard wood floors. When we tore up the carpet, however, we found some beautiful
square parquet tiles (maybe 6” x 6”). Most of the tiles are still in very good condition, however some have received water damage. Here are some pictures.

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... C00613.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... C00612.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... C00611.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... C00610.jpg

As you can see, it seems the previous owners made a “moat” of filler, and then replaced some tiles near the door. They then tried to use tack strips to aid the process.
My question, is can we simply replace the tiles that are mucked up? May there be other problems beneath the tiles we may not see?
Essentially, what’s the best way to proceed to come out with some nice looking floors. Try to salvage this parquet? Lay a floating engineered floor above? Or rip it all up and start from scratch, dealing with hardwood over a concrete slab?

are those tiles solid wood? or are they veneer ply? If it is veneer you may be better off going over with a new engineered floor, since there likely won't be enough material sand.

Good question, it looks like a peeled top layer to me, could be wrong. Regardless...you would have a good ole time finding more of that material. I would sure try to find out where all that moisture came from, before I do anything. I like the idea of saving a floor with history like that. Hard to say if it's feasable.

I agree it would be difficult to find that material. I think if the stains are from water and not pet urine, most of them would sand out. YOu can also stain the floor to hides any stains that won't come out.

I saw that same floor at the salvage store here in town last week. Its a old old bruce floor that has been discontinued for a long time.

IMO your going to spend more time and money looking for tiles and trying to repair it than it's worth. Demo it. It looks like.....well you fill in the words.

I agree. It looks pretty bad. Interestingly, we have been wanting to get rid of our parquet floor for years, and are currently doing so.

http://bit.ly/hAqvZb

I was worried about how tough it was going to be to get it unglued from the subfloor, but it is so dry, it appears it will come up in pieces. Still a lot of work, though.

http://bit.ly/dVbOwE

We are in the DC area also, and our floor is common to homes built in the 60's. Yours looks a little newer, but still old-fashioned IMO.

Looks like the old adhesive is pretty much crystallized which is typical of parquet floors that old. Easy demo, especially for people on concrete.

Yes, I did a little testing, picking at it with a pry bar and hammer. Pieces popped right up with nearly all of the glue remaining on the piece and not the subfloor. The pieces in the photo came up when I yanked the carpet tack strip.

Which leads me to a question referencing that photo, which is in front of a 3-panel, 10-foot wide sliding door. 3" planking will be parallel to the threshold of this window/door. How should I treat that installation, especially at the threshold? Expansion space, covered by a lapped threshold piece, which is tight to the door threshold? That seems a little clunky looking, but may end up OK as the threshold is 11/16 thick in front of the screen-door track, and a bit higher on the outside.

I dispise the look of those baby thresholds. I try and just use some shoe or quarter round staind to match the door. Or the flooring.

Have a friend who got some heavy L shaped steel and painted it black. Course his house looks like a loft in NYC, commercial looking.

I don't like the look either, but the height of the floor is already 1/16" higher than the existing threshold, so with the addition of the overlap, it will probably look like it is creating a track well for the door runner (to collect dirt, of course). I assume I need an expansion space anyway.

I have the same issuer upstairs where the floor will meet four carpeted rooms plus a bathroom with a tile threshold. My thought is to simply butt the parallel pieces to the carpet, and install a perpendicular piece to butt in those doors. Instead of the mini-threshold. But, then I am stepping on tack strips, maybe.

You can roll the carpet edge under and tack it with an upholstry tacker CA style, no tack strips.