installing wood floors

[Brian]

We ordered the flooring on Saturday for the dining/living/foyer/office rooms. It's an engineered Tiger Wood, 5" wide by 3' long, or so. Laying down on slab, so our options were limited.
Anyone installed this type of stuff?
There is an existing parquet floor that is glued down. Taking this up is giving me a rough surface (the glue is pulling up a little concrete in places).
Is laying this down over a rough surface ok? Do I need to patch it up? (I hope not, that sounds very painful.....)

[Surfah]

We ordered the flooring on Saturday for the dining/living/foyer/office rooms. It's an engineered Tiger Wood, 5" wide by 3' long, or so. Laying down on slab, so our options were limited.
Anyone installed this type of stuff?
There is an existing parquet floor that is glued down. Taking this up is giving me a rough surface (the glue is pulling up a little concrete in places).
Is laying this down over a rough surface ok? Do I need to patch it up? (I hope not, that sounds very painful.....)

How rough are we talking?

Personally I'd try and make that slab as clean as possible.

[FN Phat]

We ordered the flooring on Saturday for the dining/living/foyer/office rooms. It's an engineered Tiger Wood, 5" wide by 3' long, or so. Laying down on slab, so our options were limited.
Anyone installed this type of stuff?
There is an existing parquet floor that is glued down. Taking this up is giving me a rough surface (the glue is pulling up a little concrete in places).
Is laying this down over a rough surface ok? Do I need to patch it up? (I hope not, that sounds very painful.....)

I would recommend grinding down the high spots and filling in the low spots. You want an even application of adhesive as possible. Also make sure you buy plenty of blue painters tape. Use strips of the tape to keep the flooring tight to one another as you continue your work. If you don't do this you will be chasing your tail as the adhesive expands and pushes and seperates the planks. Post pics, your wood sounds beautiful.

[Donuthole]

Post pics, your wood sounds beautiful.

Signature quote!

[pellegrino]

How rough are we talking?

Personally I'd try and make that slab as clean as possible.

you perfectionist, you. Ok, so I'd probably do the same. That said, If the hole is less than 1/8" deep and less than 3-4" wide I wouldn't worry about it. You're not going to see much of a difference. Anything more might give you trouble on the install or worse, three years down the road. Patch those spots that are deeper and wider and don't worry about getting it perfect. I've never installed this stuff, but I've seen it done and it seems pretty straight forward, very similar to standard tongue and groove, but not as much work.

[FN Phat]

Signature quote!

Damn. I was going to write "hard wood"

[falafel]

Damn. I was going to write "hard wood"

That makes more sense. No one thinks flaccid wood is beautiful.

[Surfah]

you perfectionist, you. Ok, so I'd probably do the same. That said, If the hole is less than 1/8" deep and less than 3-4" wide I wouldn't worry about it. You're not going to see much of a difference. Anything more might give you trouble on the install or worse, three years down the road. Patch those spots that are deeper and wider and don't worry about getting it perfect. I've never installed this stuff, but I've seen it done and it seems pretty straight forward, very similar to standard tongue and groove, but not as much work.

I am less concerned about chunks of the slab coming up with the parquet (unless they're significant in size) than I am with the old glue. I'd sand that off. And like FN Phat if I had really low spots in the slab I'd use a leveler to fill them in and grind down the high spots.

Trying to fix this later is a pain in the ass. FN Phat knows. I took over the warranty work of a home built by a superintendent who didn't give a crap about the concrete contractor's work. It was the worst slab-on-grade I have ever seen. It took months to fix and get right. And this was after the homeowners had already moved in. It was an absolute nightmare and those homeowners hated me by the end of it. Seriously they wouldn't allow me into the house. They were batshit crazy though so I was kind of glad.

[FN Phat]

I am less concerned about chunks of the slab coming up with the parquet (unless they're significant in size) than I am with the old glue. I'd sand that off. And like FN Phat if I had really low spots in the slab I'd use a leveler to fill them in and grind down the high spots.

Trying to fix this later is a pain in the ass. FN Phat knows. I took over the warranty work of a home built by a superintendent who didn't give a crap about the concrete contractor's work. It was the worst slab-on-grade I have ever seen. It took months to fix and get right. And this was after the homeowners had already moved in. It was an absolute nightmare and those homeowners hated me by the end of it. Seriously they wouldn't allow me into the house. They were batshit crazy though so I was kind of glad.

"I no rike ria man, I hate ria, I kirr ria man!" = instant classic

[Brian]

thanks all.
I've only pulled up part of the old flooring, so I'm not entirely sure what I'll see.
I'll put a picture of how things look when I get home tonight.

[Lost Student]

Will your new floor be installed as a floating floor or will it be attached directly to the slab?

[Donuthole]

Will your new floor be installed as a floating floor or will it be attached directly to the slab?

Do you mean "float" in the traditional sense, or in the new (mis?)use of the term? I ask because my understanding is that floating a floor used to mean running furring strips against the slab, and then installing the wood floor over the furring running perpendicular (so the furring acts as mini-joists, so to speak). Lately, I've noticed the installation of snap-in flooring laid over a foam underlayment is called "floating".

[Brian]

Will your new floor be installed as a floating floor or will it be attached directly to the slab?

it will be glued down.
It's not the lock-in type.

[FN Phat]

I think he will be using adhesive to keep the floor in place with engineered wood. To my understanding, it will not be a floating floor in any definition of the word.

[Donuthole]

I think he will be using adhesive to keep the floor in place with engineered wood. To my understanding, it will not be a floating floor in any definition of the word.

Agreed. My post was a round-about way of pointing out that I think it's annoying how the same term is used for two installation techniques which are as different as can be.