Best Subfloor Material For Hardwood

A typical wood framed residential flooring system is more complicated than you think.

Best subfloor material for hardwood.

Sub floor construction should have expansion areas of their own in the area of 1 8 1 4 between boards or sheets of ply. How the subfloor materials react to water matters during both an open air construction phase of a house as well as homeownership when a leak or flood might compromise the subfloor. Laminate is a fairly thin material and is not forgiving when it comes to grooves dents and ridges. Standard plywood can be used for subfloors but a better material is 3 4 inch tongue and groove plywood subflooring.

Even the slightest imperfections in your subfloor can telegraph into the flooring and result in squeaking buckling and uneven floors. It s in these rooms where people will likely install tiles hardwood flooring or laminate. The tongue and groove edges interlock to resist movement along the panel edges and create an overall stiffer. 9 16 or thicker floating engineered wood floors can simply be installed directly on plank subfloor the hardwood flooring must be installed crossing the subfloor boards at a 90 degree angle.

The 13 best. The subfloor consists of sheet materials that are nailed or screwed to the joists to. If the existing subfloor is in poor condition you will need to add a secondary underlayment of thin plywood over the subfloor. As with hardwood laminate flooring is best installed on a 3 4 inch thick plywood subfloor.

If there is any deflection in the wood plank subfloor when walked on it would be advisable to add an additional layer of 3 8 or 1 2 thick plywood. Preferred subfloors in these cases are a mortar bed or cement board. When it comes to hardwood flooring the quality of the installation will be determined by the quality of many things including the choice of subflooring and the condition its in. Floating sub floors for solid hardwood installations generally consist of two layers of plywood or allowing enough wood for a 1 inch flooring cleat to hold effectively.