Hello,

We are installing a Beaulieu 6 inch wide engineered wood floating floor that uses a unilin click system and no glue or fasteners of any kind.

We are a bit confused about what underlayment we should be using.

-30 year old one level rancher with plywood sub-floor
-hardwood is going in entire house (except bathrooms and laundry) total of 1400 sq. ft.
-entire house sits on a crawlspace that has a poured concrete floor
-bone dry down there, no moisture issues
-pink batten insulation sits in between the floor joists

What kind of options would be suitable for the underlayment. We would like to avoid something that does a lot of off-gasing if possible.

A gentleman at Home Depot suggested an Eco Cork product, but I don't know if it is the right thing to be using. It's specifically for laminate or engineered flooring and it seems to be a quality product. The cork sounds like a nice idea, but this particular product has a vapor barrier on the backside of it.

I thought you were not supposed to use a vapour barrier on a wooden sub-floor? In the product directions it says if using on a wooden floor to lay it down without sealing the pieces together with the adhesive strips so that the wooden sub-floor can breath.

It seems strange to be using a product with a vapor barrier but not actually utilizing the vapor barrier. Should we be looking for something without one or is this product okay to use if we don't seal the pieces together?

Thank you