Carpet over oak tongue and groove flooring or remove?

[Lorcan Moriarty]

Hi,

We've just bought a new house. I've got an arthritic dog, and the current floor downstairs is a high polish, very smooth oak tongue and groove hardwood floor laid over the existing floorboards throughout. She'd be falling and slipping anywhere she stepped. Also, it's laid at a 45 degree angle so just looks weird to my eyes.

The skirting they'd put in is all knackered and falling off/ missing, and also isn't right for the age of the house (it's also like a tiny architrave, only about 75mm height).

I had a joiner come round to price for new skirting and architrave and he said he'd just carpet over the tongue and groove oak floor as it's likely nailed down and put the new skirting on top. My concern is if any pipework needed doing, it's much easier to just roll back carpet and lift floorboards than if there's another additional layer of floor beneath.

My question is: should I just carpet over it, or should I rip out all the boards and sell them (and then carpet over it). How hard would that be to do?

Thanks!

 

[Notch7]

Just carpet over it.

A plumber won’t care ripping through 2 layers, it’s not a deal breaker, just a temporary irritation.

 

[Captain Nemesis]

A carpet wont really add to any existing difficulty of accessing pipes.

Seems a shame to scrap a nice oak floor - future prospective buyers might very much like the option of uncovering it.

 

[Mr Chibs]

Will all your doors need planing off if you put carpet on top of this lot?

Personally I’d start again. If the floor is glossy, wondering if it could be engineered flooring?