Hi!

We have an old house (like over 100 yrs old) and the flooring is that wide plank flooring, so no nice wood floors :<.

Some of the boards are loose and aren't real even and the heater vents are close to the floor.

Is it advisable to put down a thin piece of wood over the planks to even it up and give it a more flat surface before laying down laminate? The previous owners put laminate over some portions and I've noticed the cracks are happening right where two planks meet side-by-side.

Or is there a more favored way like tearing up the plank and putting down real floor boards?

Thank you.
Joy

I would use at least 1/2 plywood screwed down. What you trying to do can be very hard, as these older floors can be very uneven.

Here's how I would do it.


Find the high spots on your floor and install the plywood so that the edges of the plywood are as far from these humps as you can make them. Now make sure you place your screws every 5 inches or so along the plywood edges and about 6 inches on the inside of the plywood.

1) First screw down any loose boards.
2) Then screw down 1/2 plywood on top.

3)After the plywood is all screwed down, use a leveling compound to fill in your low spots. You can find this in Home Depot or Lowes.

Please feel free to ask me if you need more detail then this..

Regards... Dominick