Superpack

70's ranch style house. Converting one of the back bedrooms to a master bathroom. Subfloor is 1x8 on diagonal. 3/4" x 2 1/4" oak is the finish floor. Is it okay in this situation to durock over the existing oak finish floor, or should we remove the oak, glue and screw 1/2" ply over the existing 1x8 and install the durock over that. Why or why not?

Regards,

lldelage

The oak flooring wont breathe as well after capping with the durock. If the space under the old floor is humid there is some possibility of the oak swelling and creating a problem eventually.

Trim Plus

Hi,
peronally I would remove the oak floor and durarock over the existing subfloor just because your adding an additional 3/4-1" of floor thickness with durarock, mortors, and tile. I really don't see an issue if you really want to lay over the existing hardwood. If anything use long enough screws to to ancor into the subfloor not just the hardwood flooring, and try to find a screw with a 1-1/14" shank (no thread at top of screw) so it grips in the subfloor not the hardwood and pulls eveything tight.

Leo
trimplus(dot)biz