Can I Lay a Wood Floor Over Concrete?

A hardwood floor can definitely be placed over a concrete base, just as long as the hardwood itself is engineered rather than solid. Whereas engineered hardwood is frequently glued directly on top of concrete, solid wood floors need to be placed on top of a plywood subfloor, explains Rich Kessner of New York Floorman LLC.

When a homeowner first begins looking into what type of flooring he or she is going to have installed at home, Kessner says it is important to do the necessary research on both solid hardwood and prefinished engineered floors. Engineered floors are typically sold in strips, and are made to be installed in places with high humidity or where installing a plywood subfloor is not an option. Engineered floors can be glued directly onto concrete or nailed onto a plywood subfloor, giving homeowners a number of options when it comes to the installation of their new hardwood flooring in Manhattan.

The other option that homeowners have when choosing which type of floor to install, other than engineered, is a solid hardwood floor. This type of flooring comes finished or unfinished, and the installation is generally an easy process. The problem for many apartment-dwellers, though, is that neither finished nor unfinished solid hardwood floors can be laid over a concrete base. Before a solid floor can be installed, a 3/4″ thick plywood subfloor must first be put in place. Then, the solid strips will be nailed onto that.

Because Kessner’s company handles hardwood flooring installation jobs for clients in Manhattan, he says he frequently works with people whose apartments do not have enough height to allow for the use of a plywood subfloor in addition to the solid wood floor. (Typically, plywood subfloors must be at least 3/4″ thick in order to be useful.) Together, the width of a plywood subfloor and a solid wood floor can quickly add up, and some people who live in apartments with low ceilings simply cannot forego those additional few inches of height, Kessner explains. For these people, an engineered floor is the obvious option.

For people who prefer not to glue their engineered hardwood floor to a concrete base, another option exists. Engineered wood floors can be floated over a concrete base with the help of a foam piece, which is what the engineered floor itself actually sits on. Although this is not necessarily as popular an option as simply gluing the hardwood directly onto the concrete, it is something that Kessner says is available for people interested in having hardwood flooring installation in Manhattan.

The only downside to installing an engineered floor on concrete comes up if there is too much moisture in the concrete itself. According to Kessner, the installer should make sure that the concrete that the wood is being placed upon is completely dry and that there are not any water or humidity issues that could cause the wood to buckle. He says that at New York Floorman, he and his staff always check for these types of issues automatically, so homeowners do not have to worry about when they are having an engineered floor installed.

If the moisture level of the concrete is checked and it is determined that it is at a level that is too high, then Kessner says the next option would be to install the foam layer and float the engineered wood over the foam. “The foam acts sort of as a moisture barrier,” he says. This type of application would be most common in a basement floor, where it is common for humidity levels to be especially high.

Because his company is located in Manhattan and the majority of his customers live in apartments with concrete floors, Kessner says that most of the floors he installs are of the engineered variety. Although he installs plenty of solid floors as well, Kessner says that people who live in apartments with low ceilings almost always prefer engineered floors because they can be placed directly on top of concrete without having to build up a plywood subfloor first. He says that solid hardwood floors are more common in downtown loft buildings, where the ceilings tend to be much higher, while engineered floors are more common in uptown apartments.

Price-wise, Kessner says that the price of an engineered wood floor and a solid wood floor are very comparable. Although installing a solid hardwood floor does require the extra step of first putting down a plywood subfloor, Kessner says that the costs associated with that are minimal. The cost of a project in total always depends on the square footage, but Kessner says that people who have more work done can usually get prices that are somewhat less per square foot.