Engineered vs Luxury vinyl and raising my subfloor questions

[Camasonian]

Hello everyone. The ground floor of my home is currently half tile (in the kitchen, hallways, and bath) and has 3 separate sections of old crummy carpet in the living room, family room, and the one ground-floor bedroom. I want to rip out the carpet and install some type of hardwood or hardwood-look product in it’s place. I’d preferably rip out all the tile as well, but it is in good shape and that would double the cost of the job. Here are the issues.

1. There is a 3/4” elevation difference between the tiled sections and the carpeted sections. This includes a long transition right down the middle of the living room, and another long transition between the family room and dining room. So I very much want to have the two floors at the same level to avoid tripping hazards. The tile is 3/8” tile sitting on 3/8” hardiebacker and where I have measured the elevation difference with calipers it comes out very slightly more than 3/4”. About 0.78 in to be exact. With the tack strip and thick carpet with pad it comes out about perfect right now, but some thinner engineered for LVP floor will need to be raised.

2. The current subfloor is standard OSB. The house was build new in 2004 by DR Horton and the subfloor seems in good shape, but I haven’t ripped up all the carpet yet to actually inspect. There is a basement below so it is on floor joists, not concrete.

It seems I have several choices and I can’t figure out which would be the most optimal. Cost is an issue, but not the main issue. I’m willing to spend more to do the job right.

Choice 1: Install regular 3/4 inch pre-finished solid hardwood. This seems like a logical option, but I’m not sure about nailing or stapling solid hardwood planks into OSB. I have seen mixed advice about that.

Choice 2: Install high-end 3/4 engineered floor. There are a few flooring companies that have 3/4” engineered products, but they command pretty premium prices. I haven’t actually done the math to see if this is in the same cost ballpark as putting down a 1/4 or 3/8 in layer of plywood to combine with a thinner floor.

Choice 3: Install a thinner engineered floor (most seem to be in the 3/8 to 1/2 in range) on top of a layer of 1/4” or 3/8” plywood to raise the subfloor.

Choice 4: Same as choice 3 except use LVP instead of engineered hardwood.

The current transitions between carpet and tile is a metal Schluter strip that is tucked under the tile and the carpet is just pushed up flush against it. I am hoping that I can do the same with engineered hardwood and just push the first row of planks up against this transition strip and nail them down and avoid using some sort of t-moulding. Maybe leave a very tiny gap and fill it with some sort of caulk that matches the color of the tile grout. If I go with a floating floor then it would float on the other 3 edges but would be fixed to the transition strip. The wood floor would be no more than about 12-14 ft wide from the transition to the wall so it isn’t an enormous expanse. Ideally I’d aim to have the surface of the wood be a very tiny bit lower than the metal Schluter strip so that I don’t get chipping of the hardwood edge.

Suggestions? I’m not wedded to a wood product but that is my inclination. I had a good experience with engineered floors in my last house and liked how I could use a stain pen to just make any scratches vanish. After 10 hard years with kids and dogs it didn’t take much work to get the floor back to “like new” condition when we put it up for sale and moved out.

This is what the current tile and carpet transitions look like. You can see the dog hair which is one reason I want rid of the carpet.

 

[Mark Brown]

If you are keeping the tile, which it sounds like you are, just install a 3/4 inch hardwood and call it a day.

There is no issue installing hardwood on OSB, so says the National Wood Flooring Association and I take their word for it.

We do it every single day. You gonna be fine

 

[Camasonian]

If you are keeping the tile, which it sounds like you are, just install a 3/4 inch hardwood and call it a day.

There is no issue installing hardwood on OSB, so says the National Wood Flooring Association and I take their word for it.

We do it every single day. You gonna be fine

That’s the idea that I’m coming around to. Some day in the distant future we may decide to do a complete kitchen remodel at which case we might want to rip out all the tile and do all new floors. But that is a long way off as we have one child starting college and another who will in 3 years. Keeping the tile makes this a 750 ft job rather than about an 1800 sf job. So this is probably an interim solution that could wind up being very long term. The 3/4” engineered options seem to be exceedingly expensive so solid wood would be cheaper.

Do I for certain need to run the hardwood at 90 degrees to the floor joists? I was going to run it the other direction Which would be parallel to the transition joints in the pictures Rather than perpendicular to them.

 

[Mark Brown]

You do need to run your floor perpendicular to floor joists, believe it or not it will sag out the middles of the joists. I know it is hard to believe but I have seen it more than once.
You could always cross brace the joists from below, or add a minimum 1/2 inch cdx plywood to the subfloor assuming what you have bow is 23/32 osb bit then you are back to height/cost/material limitations.

Just make a header along the tile and install off that. Problem solved

 

[Camasonian]

You do need to run your floor perpendicular to floor joists, believe it or not it will sag out the middles of the joists. I know it is hard to believe but I have seen it more than once.
You could always cross brace the joists from below, or add a minimum 1/2 inch cdx plywood to the subfloor assuming what you have bow is 23/32 osb bit then you are back to height/cost/material limitations.

Just make a header along the tile and install off that. Problem solved

By header do you mean nailing down the first strip of wood along the tile transition and then work back towards the opposite wall? That was what I was planning to do. I assume you would rip the tongue off the first row of planks along the tile transition and nail them down that way and just cover the nail holes? I’m not positive how square the room actually is. I assume reasonably square and the far wall is mostly covered with furniture and such. So a crooked final seam along the baseboard won’t be very visible.

There will be no cross-bracing from below. It is a full finished daylight basement below and I don’t plan to rip out all the ceilings. So whatever joists are there are what we have to work with. But I do know they run front to back which is the same way that I was planning to run the floor plans.

 

[C.J.]

A header board will have the length of the board bumping up against the tile then the rest of the floor will have the butt joint of the boards bumping into the header board.

Something like this.

 

[Camasonian]

That makes total sense and looks great. Except that I want to run the planks in the same direction as the tile border, rather than perpendicular as shown there.

 

[C.J.]

You can do that but you must first beef up your subfloor otherwise the planks will dip between the joists as Mark said. You would need to install another layer of subfloor, perpendicular to the joists with the side seams offset by at least 1’ from the existing seams (butt seams land on joists but not on top of existing seams) and generally 3/4” thick plywood. The reason for this is because the hardwood itself, if laid perpendicular to the joists, adds stiffness. If laid parallel to the joists, the subfloor itself is not strong enough to resist deflection between the joists and will allow the dip between the joists to telegraph through your hardwoods.

Once you go to all that trouble your hardwoods will now be 3/4” above the tile. Maybe you add 1/4”? or 1/2”? underlayment and install a floating floor to flush out with the tile.

 

[Camasonian]

You can do that but you must first beef up your subfloor otherwise the planks will dip between the joists as Mark said. You would need to install another layer of subfloor, perpendicular to the joists with the side seams offset by at least 1’ from the existing seams (butt seams land on joists but not on top of existing seams) and generally 3/4” thick plywood. The reason for this is because the hardwood itself, if laid perpendicular to the joists, adds stiffness. If laid parallel to the joists, the subfloor itself is not strong enough to resist deflection between the joists and will allow the dip between the joists to telegraph through your hardwoods.

Once you go to all that trouble your hardwoods will now be 3/4” above the tile. Maybe you add 1/4”? or 1/2”? underlayment and install a floating floor to flush out with the tile.

OK, so run the planks perpendicular to the joists. Got it.

If I'm not using solid hardwood planks, but engineered hardwood or LVP or a layer of 3/8 plywood does it still matter which way I run the planks?

 

[Mark Brown]

Most engineered hardwoods call for the same standards as solid, I believe mostly because there isn't a lot of independent research into it. Floating anything can go whichever way it wants, so says the rules and lvp goes anywhere, hell I've put it on the ceiling.

 

[highup]

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