Hardwood Floor Subfloor Thickness

The key to a beautiful long lasting hardwood or laminate floor is a well prepared subfloor.

Hardwood floor subfloor thickness.

This method only measures subfloor thickness. Before you install your plywood subfloor first calculate the room s square footage to find out how much flooring you ll need to buy. If the hardwood flooring is installed nailed down parallel to the direction of the old wood flooring the new wood floors could pull apart leaving open gaps or. Depending on if what the floor finish will be tile hardwood or carpet there are different recommendations for the actual thickness of the plywood.

The thickness of plywood panels in a subfloor is regulated by the. Usually manufactured in 4 by 8 foot sheets plywood panels and osb are acceptable subfloors for hardwood flooring as long as they are the proper thickness. If you re shopping for solid hardwood floors you ll find three thicknesses of boards. Keep in mind that for mechanically fastened floors osb doesn t hold fasteners as well as plywood so you need to use a thicker material to get the same holding power.

5 8 inch 15 88 mm 3 4 inch 19 mm 7 8 inch 22 23 mm. But combined with other methods that measure the finish floor you can get a fairly accurate reading of total floor thickness. For heavier floors such as hardwood something closer to 9 16 of an inch is better. The finished floor is then installed on top of the subfloor.

The subfloor is the decking installed on top of flooring joists. Osb doesn t hold nails as well as plywood so an osb subfloor needs to be thicker. 3 4 thick or thinner solid or engineered hardwood flooring must be installed across the old wood floor boards at a 90 degree angle. A 3 8 inch subfloor is the bare minimum needed to be a good support.

Considering the fasteners are installed at a 45 degree angle or blind nailed overall thickness required runs about 5 8 of one inch. Do this by multiplying the room s length by its width. Floating sub floors for solid hardwood installations generally consist of two layers of plywood or allowing enough wood for a 1 inch flooring cleat to hold effectively. When it comes to subfloors that go down on top of the floor joists between the joists and the finish material plywood is the preferred choice.

If the joists are spaced 16 inches on centers or less the minimum required thicknesses. The subfloor provides a support structure for the flooring that will go on top of it and to be successful the subfloor needs to be strong enough to support the flooring.