What are my Options to cover parquet over slab

[miguelito3218]

Hi there. I have a quite a dilemma....I currently have 3/4 parquet oak flooring in my house, glued down to slab. I was thinking i had no problem, as i was going to just use a descent laminate over the parquet, because i have a large dog.

Come to find out, perhaps the only floor you CANT install laminate on is, hardwood glued to slab! My research says that the laminate will buckle....seems strange that you can install laminate over plywood over slab, but not hard wood thats been in place for 50 yrs.

Anyhow, I don't want to remove the parquet because I suspect it is glued with asbestos cut back from way back when. I actually did remove one room because there was alot of termite damage and so the tiles came right up, not disturbing the cut back much.

so I was wondering, besides carpet, what can I install over my existing flooring? Refinishing is out because the one room is torn up and there is significant termite damage to the floors around the perimeters of the house which, i will patch with ply wood.

Can i do engineered hardwood over this floor? Another hard wood? Thanks for any help! by the way, i'm located in florida.

[CThomp]

I don't see why you couldn't just nail a new hard wood floor directly to the one you've got.

It might not be a bad idea to attach a layer of 15lb felt over the parquet though. It'll act as a vapor barrier.

For a hard wood in Florida i'd reccomend southern yellow pine which is one of the harder soft woods. Or oak.

SYP is fairly inexpensive as a hardwood. And it's a very nice looking floor when oiled and poly'd.

I wouldn't do laminate though. I've had hardwood and laminate. There's such a massive difference between the two. I've got heart pine floors now. They came with the house.

[miguelito3218]

so you think a hardwood over the parquet vs. a laminate would work? I'd assume an engineered hardwood would work as well?

I know that all the laminate manufacturers say you cannot have laminate over hardwood glued to slab....I don't know what the hardwood manufacturer says.

should i do a nail down or glue down? I think nail down is easier to work with than glue, but I don't know. Thanks!

[CThomp]

I think nailing would be easier as well. I'm not sure about the engineered wood.

Seems to me though that the parquet has become your new sub-floor. So wood to a wood sub-floor shouldn't be an issue. But the felt should actas a vapor barrier just in case it poses an issue.

Maybe contact a floor refinisher to see what they think about it. Or the engineered floor manufacturer. They're customer service is probably fairly good.