I just found the forum two days ago and already have learnt quite a bit from here. I just wish I had founda this a bit sooner.

We instially started thinking we will replace all the carpet in the house with laminate flooring due to allergies for my son. we also had some other work to be done in the house like painting and bathroom upgrades and few other stuff so we choose a contractor based on all the stuff.
After we started researching laminate I really did not like the look of laminate so we decided to change to engineered (due to concrete floors in some part and price) hardwood. we talked to the contractor and he said he was ok with doing it. So we went ahead and chosse BR 111 brazialian cherry 3/8 X 31/4" ( we wanted 5" but the wait was like 3 months ).

Now that we have the ordered the floor the sales person at the store we bought has been great and has offered us a lot of help in learning about harwood. They also offer installation services but he never pushed it on us. He suggested we should consider flaoting on concrete and stapled on the upstairs .

The contractor we choose wants to do floated floors upstair also. He does not seem very comfortable with stapling the floors upstairs/ He says the 3/8 is to thing for nailing it down. I got the feeling he has alot more expereince with installing solid hardwood or laminate but not engineered.
So here comes my questions:
1) Would you suggest floating or staple/nailing down the floor on plywood upstairs?
2) Is stapling the engineered 3/8 a lot different than sold hardwoord?
3)One more question is that I was reading the BR 111 instruction guideline and it asks us to put 6 mil before we staple the floors down? I though felt paper was the standard? Do you suggest the 6 mil if we decide to staple?

Thanks for reading through all that. Appreciate any help.

Flaoting is cheaper than gluing on concrete but has a hollow sound to it. I staple any time I can when on wood substrates. But not a fan of using plastic under wood upstairs over wood, I use 15lb felt. But you should follow manufacturers recommendations always for warranty purposes. Some engineered cannot be floated so check that.

The GC probably is not familiar with wood and is looking for the easiest way. Also stapling down a 3/8 floor takes a smaller stapler than the big ones like this model http://www.bostitch.com/default.asp?CAT ... ng+Stapler

Follow your manufacturers installation requirements.

Thank you Stephen. I will pass the info to the GC. If I still fill not 100% comfortable I will tell him to do the floating on the concrete and ask a floor installer to do the stairs and the updatirs installation.

You have someone that is clueless about wood flooring, installing your investment.

Good luck with that!

FloorGuy,
You are right my GC did not seem very comfortable with the installing engineered hardwood. We have talked to him and he agreed that we would be the first place where he would be doing engineered. So I told him I was not comfortable and he said we could use some one else for the flooring part of the job.
So we are going with the Flooring installer from the store we bought the hardwood.

I would like to thank this board as I would not have made this change with out the information here.

I agree. I would also recommend stapling the hardwood with the bostich stapler. The floor will feel much more solid.