Hi y'all,
I am fixing to put down a floating wood floor over concrete slab. When removing furniture this weekend to do slab prep (the slab is nowhere near flat!) I thought of a rather important question. I have three large bookcases that go along one edge of the room. Would the weight of these cause problems with a floating floor? Do I need to bite the bullet and glue down? Yeah, I was trying to go for the easier option!

Let me know what you think!

Back to the top in hopes of an opinion from someone in the know. I'm going to finish floor prep by Saturday, then the question becomes moot.

Paul, I think you should talk to the manufacterer on this one. I think it would be OK but since you didn't say what floor brand you are floating, I don't want to stick my neck out and say it would be fine. Most/all flooring companies have customer service depts. to handle questions just like yours. Good luck!

Thanks Gary,
I kinda figured the answer would be something like that since I didn't get a response before. I'm using one of the new Chinese folks, LM Flooring. Kendall 1/2 X 5 inch planks in Jatoba.The samples they had, and the area that was laid with it at Prosource, looked pretty good. I'll call the gal at Prosource and see what they have to say. I was going with floating because it's easier, and because I was a bit concerned with the wide swings in humidity and temperature we get here in North Texas.

Thanks for the response, and for all the other good info I've gotten from y'all!

Paul

Have a whole house of back-breaking oak furniture that will be placed over a floating 3/4" nail-down over 15# felt over 1" of plywood over 10 mil poly over flattened concrete. My bet is that the furniture will minimize floating movement of the floor but I'll still have the advantage of room for expansion and contraction. Did not use T moldings for room transitions but did pay special attention to allowing at least 1"+ of space around all edges and jambs. Biggest advantage I see of floating install is that solid moisture barrier between your costly wood and the damp slab. Unless your concrete has a solid barrier below it, ALL concrete wicks moisture with the only question being how much. Like Texas, my desert home also gets wide swings in humidity and dampness (as evidenced by our current rainy stint - the Salt "river" here in Phoenix is bank-to-bank right now!). I wanted to give that costly wood as much protection as possible, hence the floating choice. One advantage of floating certainly is NOT the lower amount of labor involved. As to my furnitures weight, I am more worried about getting it back into place without scratching/denting this nice new floor. My bet (backed up with 2,800 sq ft of flooring cost/labor) is that the heavy furniture won't be a problem with the floating aspect of the floor. Time will tell...

Well VP,

Your and Paul's situation is quite a bit different. Your floating floor is 1&3/4" thick whereas his will be 1/2". Yours would definitely be able to handle heavy items easier/better. I'm not saying heavy items cannot be placed on floaters; just that different manufacterers rely on different systems to keep the floors together. I recall a Tarkett floater I did about ten years ago where the homeowner called me back to have a look at a "problem". Seems he also had placed some heavy bookcases on the floor and caused the floor to be abit lower than before. No one would have known except that I had put new baseboards in and now there was a 1/8" gap under the base between the floor. The owner asked me if it was a problem and I replied that it was only cosmetic. I had pushed the base down when installing it but the weight was so great it probably mashed the pad down. As far as I know, there were no other problems with the floor. In your case VP, you do not have any padding under your floor to mash down or compress so you will not need to deal with this "problem".