First off, I am new to this forum and what a great wealth of info here...
My house is about 76yrs old and we have been here about 4years. My wife wanted me to rip up our carpet in the living room with the intention of having the oak floors refinished.
After ripping out the carpet, we realized the previous owner had run framing nails down each joist in the oak hardwood flooring( I would assume he did this because of a squeaky floor and really didn't care about the hardwood floor)
So now it looks like that's getting ripped out and new floor being put in... My question is, it looks to be a 1x6 sub floor with 2x10 joists 16'' on center, the weird thing is they then ran 1/2 furring strips along the joists and then installed the hardwood floor over that.. Is that normal and why would that be done? What would you guys recommend my course of action be... rip out the old hardwood floor and furring strips and put down new 3/4 plywood on top of the 1x6 floor or rip out everything and start with a new subfloor..

Thanks

Tim

Well, I have no idea why those furring strips are there. Perhaps the installer thought it would avoid squeaks developing where the hardwood was nailed between the joists? Perhaps to allow for air flow under the floor? Or even to eliminate uneveness caused by sagging between the joists?
Anyway, it would mean that the floor was only nailed every 16 inches, and that isn't sufficient.
Tear the system down to the base subfloor, sand (or plane) any high areas down, pack any low areas to bring them up to a flat surface, refasten the 1 by 6's into the joists; then install 1/2 inch plywood over it all.