Solid hardwood floor underlayment insulayment silence quiet

shinyhalo

I live in an apartment built 5 feet high on stilts/telephone poles.
This is my subfloor, 3/4 inch plywood. It is severly warped because of uneven pressure from the supporting poles.



I am trying to make it level with a combination of shims and sheets of plywood like this, but with more shims than shown:



The floor should look like the part on the left when I am done and it should be fairly level:



I want to install solid hardwood floor from lumber liquid.
I want it to be quiet.
Which underlayment should I use? Dream home Insulayment?
http://www.lumberliquidators.com/cat...productId=2008

Where should I sandwhich the underlayment for maximum silence? Between the shim layer and the final plywood sheets?

Should I use glue to fix the hardwood planks to the final layer of levelled plywood?

Thanks!

shinyhalo

Bump.

Ok, I'll try a different tack. Please advise me on how to install a solid 3/4 inch hardwood floor over my severly warped plywood subfloor. At some points there is a 3/4 inch difference between the high and low points in the floor. I'd like it to be quiet when I walk on it.
Thanks

shinyhalo

The final layer of plywood sheets (over the shims) has smooth and level transitions from one sheet to the next.

Bud Cline

WHAT ?

shinyhalo

Hmm, not exactly confidence inspiring dialogue...

Bud Cline

shinyhalo,

I've been watching what you are doing and I gotta tell ya; I don't think I have have ever seen it done like that. That is certainly an abstract approach. Where did you get that idea?

I'm thinking it is going to for sure take a "shiny halo" to pull this one off successfully.

Good Luck!

shinyhalo

I just figured that the warping was too severe and wide spread to fill in with a paste.

How would you do it?

Bud Cline

Depends on what the real issues are and why.

TimMauriello

I'm no expert, but if it were my house I would solve the issue warping the floors first. Jacking up the structure and leveling the posts it's on may be a huge project or may not actually be to thought to do. Probably need someone to look at it.

After that, or if you can't do it, I would pull up the subfloor and fur up the joists themselves to make them level that way. Wouldn't hurt to still put that second layer on top of the subfloor, then the pad, then the flooring.

Can't actually give advise on which pad is best, but I think you'll be happiest if you try and fix the problem at a deeper level no matter which you choose.

shinyhalo

The HOA has already jacked up the building and I see new wooden support structures underneath so possibly the cause of the warping has been halted/slowed.
It didn't remove the warping that had already ocurred.

A pad right under the flooring? So you would "float" the solid hardwood on the pad? Instead of gluing it?

TimMauriello

Oh, I didn't realize you could glue to a pad like that, so I assumed it was floating. Looking at the website it appears to be installed directly under the wood. Maybe a flooring expert can weigh on that, but I've only seen wood floor nailed or glued direct to the wood subfloor directly and just used a pad for floating or carpet...

shinyhalo

There is some confusion. I have no pad yet. It is just

Warped plywood subfloor > shims and pieces of plywood > whole sheets of plywood

I still need to add the hardwood planks and maybe a pad somewhere if it is necessary

shinyhalo

Well, I figured this out by myself. This forum wasn't much help, but I figured I'd give an update.
Basically, the apartment is 4 feet above ground, up on telephone pole-like stilts. This caused the floor to become uneven with time.
I added plywood and shims to create a level base floor.
Then I put down blue rolls of padding.
Then I used reject-quality 3/4 solid oak 2 and 1/4 inch wide flooring. I nailed it in with the really long nails, but I forget which and a dewalt hammer nailer.
Then I put on a lowes finish that looks like oil but isn't. Like $50 per gallon. I rolled it on with a paint roller. Very easy.



http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/19/photokas.jpg/

njsteele

Holy crap that looks great considering what you described sounded awful, you did an incredible job.

How does it sound and feel when you walk on it? How warped was it? And was it spongy?

shinyhalo

Yeah, I was sweating it too with no help whatsoever.

I don't know if I mentioned it before but I also used UTILITY grade 3/4" oak so EVERY piece was crap.

The shims were used to fill the transition spaces between sheets of plywood. It was a big puzzle. The deepest points were around 1" lower than the highest level. I set a long level from the plywood sheets to the high points and then filled in the space underneath with shims. Then I screwed them into the floor. I left only about 1 inch of space between each row of shims.

The subfloor was NOT spongy. It was warped but very solid. One pillar just didn't sink and the others did.

The whole reason for this is because the housing association paid TWICE to have the place jacked up to level the floor and each time did nothing. So I did it myself.

Then I just rolled blue underlayment over everything.
Then I fixed EACH piece of oak with wood glue or filler or routing out a new joint. Then I used a yellow hand floor nailer with a mallet. I used long 2 inch floor nails.

It is AWESOME though. Totally quiet. I just used a paint roller to apply a lowes finish that is supposed to mimic the look of oil.