Glue or float semi solid floor

wall

HI all, am putting down semi solid merbau flooring on to new concrete floor, i dont have under floor heating, floor supplier recommends glue floor down to give `solid feel`, friends who have laid floors for a living hav`nt heard of glueing semi solid floors, they reckon there`s no need, glue costs 150 euro for 32 sq meters of floor, if i glued it for the `solid feel` would i be loosing out on insulation by not having the foam underlay, any theories?

Ancient1

I'm about to put down a semi-solid walnut floor on concrete. The concrete is covered with a sound-proof cork layer and I was told that I don't need anything else except polyurethane foam, which was supplied with the floor. I think you will need the foam.

Naux

I have a semi solid Oak floating floor in my house at the moment and it feels very "solid". I have no compaints about it.If the floor fitter does a good job then floating seems fine to me.

I heard that your screed would have to very level if you are glueing floors because if not then glued floors can show up any uneven areas/depressions in the floor.

Do-more

Naux wrote:

I heard that your screed would have to very level if you are glueing floors because if not then glued floors can show up any uneven areas/depressions in the floor.

Yeh your floor should be level no matter which installation type you choose, but particularly so when glueing down. If there are hollows you run the risk of "loss of bond" resulting in hollow sounding spots on the floor.

Correctly installed, there shouldn't be any significant difference in the wear of the floor between the two installation types, although a glued down floor will be inherently more stable than a floating floor and so there are less risks in developing problems down the line. Glued installations are much more commonplace on the Continent where they have a much longer history of using wood flooring than we do here in Ireland.

My own personal preferance is to glue down as I prefer the solid feel of the floor.

If your concrete floors are recently poured, just be sure that the moisture content is below acceptable limits regardless of which type installation you go for.

wall

Thank ye for your replies, i wonder though if i glued the floor down would i loose out on insulation by not having a foam underlay, as underlay cant be used if one is glueing (i presume?), also the floor has been down since start of June so it should be dry and put self-leveling compound on floor about 2 weeks ago.

wall

I guess there`s no right or wrong answer to this, i suppose its a matter of solidy feel versus that bit of extra insulation.