Anyone know how to install wood floors?

[dullard]

Wife just signed a lease for a commercial building. It will be for a ballroom dance studio. Her goals aren't big - just to make a few bucks a week from teaching dance (she has done it for 2.5 years now). Her main goal is to have a place to practice for competitions instead of paying $15+ per hour to rent a space.

We need to put in 750 sq. ft of the cheapest wood floor we can find. The stuff looks like it is about 1/4" thick, not the larger ~5/8" thick real wood stuff.

The problem is she rented a building where the floor isn't level (I didn't get to see it beforehand). It appears to be a concrete slab floor where a ~1/4" ridge runs down the center. Then there is a thin commercial grade carpet glued right to the concrete. In a small corner, there is tile which sticks up about 1/4" higher than the carpet.

Some flooring places claimed the wood flooring can go down right over carpet and thus won't need a pad. They also claimed the floor can handle up to 1/4" variations in the material below it. Is that too much of a stretch? Would it be best to pull up the tiles and fill that area in (keeping the carpet)? Would it be best to pull up both the tile and the carpet? Any suggestions on minimizing the ridge (I was thinking of just keeping the carpet but removing it where the ridge is at - leaving an approximately level surface)?

Cheap is an important consideration. But I don't want something that will warp and be distroyed in 2 months either. 2 years is our goal for this flooring. If the business isn't good by then, it'll be dumped. If it is good, she'll move to another location.

 

[elektrolokomotive]

I've done 3 of these floors. A level surface is important, or the seams do tend to gap. Try to level it out best you can before putting it down.

 

[whoiswes]

self-levelling concrete, perhaps??? i know that we used some of that stuff in our basement bathroom (i was fairly young at the time, but helped) and it worked quite well for our situation. IIRC, the floor was only about 1/2" off level in one corner, but this stuff worked great.

if i understand you correctly, there is a HIGH spot in the middle of the floor (and one in the corner) - could you perhaps grind this level with the rest of the floor, using some sort of commercial concrete grinder. I'm not even sure that they exist in man-portable form, but we've all seen them prepping roads for resurfacing...

sorry to ramble, but here are two quasi-options that would fix the problem versus covering it up...

 

[Scarpozzi]

Tongue and Groove my friend...

They just interlock and you leave about a quarter of an inch on all sides of the floor so it can float. You cover the gap up with trim.

You should be able to do a decent sized room pretty quick. It's only when you have to cut the boards that it takes a little measuring and work. The rest should snap down pretty quickly.....no hammer required.

Just read about the ridge. You want your subfloor to be as level as possible. I would try to get it leveled down as much as possible. Don't put laminate flooring over carpet unless the manufacturer has some system to deal with that. You don't want the floor to flex on the joints. You want it to fit together as solid as possible, thus you want a floor that's as level as possible. Good luck with the project. There are tons of skinny yuppies out there looking for dance lessons.

 

[dullard]

Thought about the concrete or other filler. I just don't know what is best to use. How expensive is that stuff (I won't have time to go to some stores for another day or two)?

Yes there is a high spot running down the middle of the floor due to some yet unknown reason, and another in the corner due to tiles.

How much would a grinder cost to rent, someone else mentioned one.

Tongue and Groove turns a $1400 floor into a $2800 floor. We don't have the cash at the moment for that in addition to all the other start up costs. Yes loans are always possible, but we were hoping to avoid that.

Fat yuppies also like to dance. It is good and fun exercise and I've seen many lose 20-30 pounds in their first few months. The most customers fit into 4 categories though:
1) Wedding couples wanting to do something other than the highschool sway.
2) Upper middle class couples in their 50s.
3) Elderly single people - male or female.
4) Extremely shy males. Those who are too shy to talk to a woman on their own yet get to press their chest up against multiple beautiful young women without needing to say a word. This is the best customer as they are customers for life.