Replacing engineered hardwood flooring with new engineered hardwood. Existing floor is floating.

New flooring company recommends glued - says it is quieter - but will do floating if we want.

I see glued as 1/8 inch lower. Quieter? If there was no cushioning layer - maybe. I can see a glued floor will have less movement in every direction and would prevent banging or clanking between the hardwood and the wood substrate (not concrete).

What says Texags?

If subfloor is wood I would stick with floating.

My experience is that glued down will be quieter. We have engineered floated over a padded liner and concreted under that. My parents did the engineered glued down to concrete and ours is a tad louder than theirs. Not a lot but it had more of an echo to it, it's by no means deafening but there is a noticeable difference. Not enough to bother us though.

Not an expert, but I'm getting ready to install engineered wood floors also. Something my flooring salesperson brought up is that if you spill liquids on a floating floor, the liquid will travel a lot further potentially causing a lot more damage. A glued floor won't allow the liquid to travel underneath, thereby containing/minimizing the damage.

We put glued down engineered flooring over the entire downstairs except for the laundry room and bathrooms. I chose the glued down over the floating for several reasons. The main one was if there was a water event in the house (dish washer leaked while out of the house) I thought it would be better to have glued down. It will never move. I realize how in unlikely a major water event is. I just didn't want to have to deal with warped wood. Also, they leave little gaps under the quarter round and I was worried about the floor walking over time and exposing a gap under the quarter round. My sales guy tried to push us towards the floating floor because it's easier to install. But we opted not to go that route.

The floating floor tends to be "softer" because there is a pad beneath the floor. But since I was buying wood floors that didn't matter to me.

Also I had them put a more water resistant glue down in areas that near a joint or areas I thought could get moisture penetration from the slab. The pad under a floating floor should have a vapor barrier so that isn't an issue there.

We've been living on ours for 9 months now and love it. I really don't think that you can go wrong with either.

I've installed and lived with both (+ nailing it down). A glue down will be quieter and feels a lot more solid, but it can be total hell to install. Repairs are also a lot more "fun." Looking back though I think I preferred it, though nailed down has been the overall best. It sounds like you have a concrete slab so that wouldn't be a good option for you.

We have floating engineered wood in our house. It is 24 years old and needs to be refinished but that has nothing to do with it being floating. There are a couple of spots that feel soft when the humidity gets really high and I don't have the AC fully on. About 10 years ago the washing machine flooded the breakfast room and I thought the floor would be ruined but it dried up with no permanent damage or warping. There are no soft spots in that area. We have had no problems in the kitchen either and it is all wood. Concrete slab underneath the pad. Real wood, nailed down looks better in my opinion but I'm pretty sure it costs a lot more. That's what you see in higher end houses around where I live.

I bought my house and the previous owner had the wood floors glued down. I wasn't too sure about having it glued down in the beginning, but after almost a year I can say I think I prefer it being glued than floating.

I have a friend staying with me and he asked after a few days if the floor was tile since it was so quiet. I explained it was glued down and he remarked how loud other floated engineered wood floors are. So if you can glue it down I would.

Honestly why not a nail down? It installs faster, you can walk on it right away and it looks and sounds better.

Our floor is nailed and I can't speak to glued. My question with glued would be how long do you plan on staying in the home? I'd think that replacing or repairing glued floors is significantly more expensive due to the labor. Of course it probably doesn't matter since the odds of staying in the home long enough to need another set of floors is slim, but it's a small consideration.

I just noticed the wood substrate comment on the OP. In that case I'd go with solid and a regular nail down installation.

If you go engineered / glue down I'd have doubts that the subfloor would survive removal at some point in the future. I have never heard of anyone gluing down on top of a wood subfloor.

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I just noticed the wood substrate comment on the OP. In that case I'd go with solid and a regular nail down installation.

If you go engineered / glue down I'd have doubts that the subfloor would survive removal at some point in the future. I have never heard of anyone gluing down on top of a wood subfloor.

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Over the weekend I spoke to the family member who installed the floor we are removing. I am not using him again only because of different city. He has been in the flooring business for 30 years. My current floor is floating though the boards are glued to each other.

I asked him this question. He said:

1. glue down on a wood subfloor will be quieter because the wood you step on is effectively much heavier now. A glued floor would be more likely to sound like a thud than a tap. He answered a question I had about noise to the floor below - and he guessed a floating floor would be slightly quieter to people immediately below.

2. glue down is a pain to remove or repair later

3. floating can cause less damage from water if the water comes from underneath since the flooring is not sitting on the subfloor directly.

4. he said "why not nail it?"

that's great information.

i've been considering installing a new engineered hardwood floor with nails, the experiences in this thread are putting that method in the lead vs floating.

If I'm gluing engineered hardwood directly to my slab at ground level, do I need a moisture barrier too?

I have a small area with glued down engineered hardwood and I like it.

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If I'm gluing engineered hardwood directly to my slab at ground level, do I need a moisture barrier too?

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I'm pretty sure they make glue with a moisture barrier. I'm also fairly sure it is not cheap.