Oak floor over tiles

[slowman]

Hi there

I've just moved house and have a (cold!) room with a tiled floor over solid concrete subfloor, which I was advised by the previous owner 'probably did not have a damp proof membrane under it'. I was planning/hoping it would be OK to lay a click together glue-free engineered wood floor on 6 or 10mm underlay with incorporated moisture barrier straight over the top of the tiles.

However, a few days back we got offered a very good deal on 23m2 of 12mm thick solid oak flooring which I snapped up in the spur of the moment. What I am not sure about now is what I need to do in terms of prepping the subfloor and laying the solid oak floor.

You can see in the photos that the floor tiles are not laid with exactly flush edges - it's somewhat uneven. As for the overall level, there are some slight dips and a slight fall to one side of the room. It's hard to measure precisely because of the raised edges of some of the tiles, but I'd say it's only out by a few mm in any given place.

Can anyone experienced advise how I should go about this? Is it a case of needing a self-levelling screed over the top of tiles? If so what type is best? And what about underlay / adhesive, etc? Can I still lay this as a floating floor or does it have to be fixed down to the subfloor? I've never done this before.. I'm guessing the engineered wood might have been an easier option to lay..

Any advice appreciated...

Thanks

[Rich]

Hiya Slowman

Sadly, your right, the engineered oak would have been far easier, and possibly cheaper in terms of hours spent and preparation needed, as solid boards need something to be fixed to, like a wooden sub-floor if secret nailing them in place (This is where the nails are put in from the side to hide them)

If you had gone for the engineered floor, you could have simply laid out the underlay right over the tiles, then the flooring straight on top of that and job done, then you just have to figure out a way to meet it with ajoining floors so it doesnt create a step, unless a step is desired, but that becomes a trip hazard that will drive you bonkers.

Solid boards, no, you shouldnt even try to lay them as a flaoting floor because you need a way to join them all together, so that the entire floor surface becomes 1 big peice, but with solid boards, you cant do that, they need to be fixed to something like existing floorboards, or........ You could glue them down, like you would with tiles, but this then eliminates a lot of the insulation they would typically offer as they would simply absorb the cold from the floor below.

Not as cold, but still cold.

I wouldnt put wooden flooring in a kitchen though, its too absorbant and cannott be cleaned thouroughly for an area where your preparing/storing food....

Also, spillages are likely to stain the flooring, leaving you with no easy way to replace the floorboards without taking it all up...

The one thing I regret now is not having under floor heating installed when our kitchen and hallway were tiled...