Desperately Need help with Floor!!!!!

[foreveramom]

Hey moms, need some help here. Hoping someone can help me out .

I have a home with unfinished wood floors that are old, (1930's) cold, and splintery. It has been a desire of ours to do something with these floors, and until this time have not had the funds to. We also have a need, our newest  daughter will be crawling soon, and the last thing I want is splintered hands and knees. My problems is this.

The floors are old, and somewhat uneven. I called in the flooring guys to measure the area to be covered with some of that  fake wood soft vinyl flooring. I don't know the real name for it, lol. The man who came in said that because of the condition of the floors we needed to lay down a layer of plywood first. Fine, we can do that.....right? Lol. I am having a hard time jump starting my husband, and so I am turning to you. have any of you had to lay down plywood over existing wood floors before, and how might one go about that? Do you nail or screw them together? Is there a particular spacing of nails or screws that is best? How to you make sure there are not soft spots or creaks in the floor? 

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Michelle

[alopez]

There are so many things you can do depending on how uneven the floors are.  If they are slightly wavy a plywood covering would be fine, but if they are too wavy then you may consider ripping them out and laying the new tongue and groove 3/4" plywood right on the joists.  You can then shim or plan the joists to trueness.  In either case make sure to glue and fasten the new ply with long enough screws to reach the joists.

Since you mentioned a laminate floating floor you can also consider the following as options.

If you just have a few dips you can use self leveling cement to level out the few areas.

Another option I have seen is to lay black roofing paper over the existing floor, staple wire mesh, and pour self leveling over the entire area.  The black paper prevents the existing floor from soaking up the water from the cement, preventing it from curing properly.  This option adds more weight to your joists so if you have anything less then 2x10 you may consider sister joisting them first.

I tried to be as DIY friendly as possible, but for more info google "preparing uneven subfloors"

[foreveramom]

Thank you!

[TutuWahine]

I just laid 3/4" plywood down and pounded plenty of nails.  I found that the more nails, the less creaks and floats.  On areas of uneven slopes or cracks and spaces, I applied a soft kind of wood putty, waited til dry and sanded the flooring smooth and even.  Four years and counting.