Dear AT,
A friend of mine just bought a place in the city, only to discover cement floors under the wall-to-wall carpet. Can you reccommend a good place to go to buy hardwood flooring that won't cost a fortune, and perhaps she could install herself?
Thanks, Jill
Installing hardwood flooring is not something we would recommend doing yourself unless you have experience. We would recommend calling up Vinny DeVaney and having him bring you floor samples and give you an estimate on the job. A low price on solid wood is @ $4.00 per square foot. To see everything you can go to the Hoboken Floors Showroom at the D&D building (979 3rd Ave). (Thanks, Jill!) MGR
Be very careful with wood over concrete. The surface must be sealed with a poly liner, then you put down stringers, then the wood.
Concrete has moisture in it and this can rise up and destroy your floors from below.
matt is right. Except there are other ways, such as glue down over cork or foam underlayments, that don't require stringers. Be careful about his condo/coop boards requirements about sound transmittance etc.., see accoustic cork website for product details to pick up jargon about sound standards. While you're carpet is out let the concrete stank dry out & go around edges of rooms that abut neighbors and seal with "backer rod" and 100% silicon caulk (then wipe clean with paper or a disposable gloved hand the line) to seal out neighboring units smoke/cooking odors and dust.
3 inch boards are easier to get to fit than 6" plus. Regards, jonathan d.
A lower cost solution could be to install engineered wood flooring. Engineered wood is mdf with a real wood veneer on the top. It comes pre-finished which eliminates alot of mess. The veneer can be refinished maybe once or twice, while real wood has a much longer life span. Pre-finished wood finishes tend to last much longer than field finishes, especially by amatuers. Lumber Liquidators in Hackensack NJ offers all types of wood flooring at very low prices-start at .99 cents per square foot. Problem is it is only open limited hours. Your contractor will buy wood here. We recently installed an engineered wood floor in our living room and it looks beautiful. No one would know it was not hardwood throughout. It cost us around $7.00 sf for materials and installation and was worth every penny. Our subfloor is not quite concrete-it is gyp crete over a plywood subfloor and steel structural system. Other people have told me that they have had problems installing wood floors on their own, including those new self locking no glue systems. This is not a finish that one should try on their own, especially over concrete.
They are called sleepers not stringers.