[usir]

So, I’m redoing all my flooring (mix of vinyl, carpet and hardwood) in engineered hardwood and tiles. My goal is to have them flush, but the engineered hardwood is only 1/4” thick and I believe tile would be between 3/4” - 1” (cement backer, thinset and tile). How is that typically done?

I’m thinking about laying another 3/4 sheets on top of my existing subfloor where the new hardwood would go. That would give me 1” to work with where the tiles would go. Is this an usual approach?

I’m gutting the whole floor, so no cabinets, trims, door jams, etc to worry about. There’s a staircase, and I’ll be laying sheet on the threads too so the first raise doesn’t get shorter. Is there anything else I should consider?

Thanks!

 

[chandler48]

Usually 3/4" wood flooring and a tile surface will meet pretty good. You use 1/4" cbu on the floor with your tile and that, with slight adjustment in the thinset at the transition can give your floors a flat meeting place. Now, using 1/4" flooring, hopefully not laminate, you may be required to put an additional 1/2" subflooring to help that meeting. That, or a good transition between the two.

 

[huesmann]

I would start with tiling the areas that are gonna be tile, then figure out how much depth you're gonna need to make up for the engineered wood to be flush with it. Presumably you are trying to avoid transition pieces.

 

[Chris616]

My wife and I replaced all the flooring in our house and our goal was to end up with the tile and hardwood at the same level. It is nicer than having height transitions between floors of differing thicknesses. Whether it is worth doing depends on how much build-up you’ll need to do and where. If 10% of the floor area needs raising to match the other 90%, that makes sense. Maybe not the other way around.

In our project we were laying down a layer of plywood over the entire sub-floor into which we routered grooves for hydronic heat piping before putting new finish floor on top. We ended up raising the floor level by about one inch, which does not sound like much, but there are some things to consider.

How will a built-up floor transition to the threshold of the in-swinging exterior doors and the air sealing that happens there.

You’ve mentioned the stair treads, and this is an important one. If every stair riser is the same height except the last one, it will be a tripping hazard.

If you live in a litigious society, you should consider what impact raising the floor level might have on things where a defined height is required by your building code. For example, raising the floor height may make a stairwell guard (short wall preventing someone falling into a stairwell) or stair handrail too low.

Some furniture (like IDEA PAX) is sized such that it can be built on the floor then tipped up with just a bit of clearance from a normal 8’ ceiling height.

It is easy to calculate the ultimate thickness of the hardwood flooring, but not the tile. That depends on how much thinset it laid down, which can be a bit tricky for inexperienced people to get consistent. Be prepared to make some adjustments when getting to the transition point with the other flooring. I had a piece of plywood screwed down that I knew was the height of the other finish floor, so I had a height target to work towards when tiling there. (You didn’t mention Ditra underlayment in your post, so I’ll just mention to check that out)

I’m not familiar with 1/4 hardwood flooring. Is it that much cheaper than normal 5/8 to ¾ inch thickness? The veneer layer is the costly part, with the rest just high quality plywood.

Chris

 

[usir]

Thanks for the recommendations, Chandler and huesman. And thanks for the great considerations chris!

Engineered hardwood is usually much thinner, around 1/4”. I was going to have to bring up the whole house because of tiles in the bathrooms and kitchen..

I’ve seen people lowering the tile subfloor (notch joist and or mess with subfloor) but that doesn’t sound wise for something aesthetic.

Another option I discarded was using floating tile (kwik tiles or snaptiles) which seems would be very thin but reviews and lack of track record makes me nervous about it.

 

[usir]

Just thought having the plywood recessed on and flush with the joists and actually found a video from Ditra (apparently this is how they do it)

That is for the shower but I see no reason why it wouldn't apply to the whole bathroom. My guess is my subfloor is 3/4" so that will give me 1" to the top of the engineered hardwood which would work perfectly.

I had crossed with their product before and now that you mentioned I took a look on the thickness aspect. It is thinner but just 1/8" (and much more expensive)