Hard wearing floor on old floorboards

[jitter340]

Hi all,

I hope someone can help. I have a room that gets quite a lot of traffic as its used as a home office but also have dogs and lots of boxes (small ecommerce biz). We also have desks and office chairs in there too.

We currently have old wooden floorboards (100 years old) under our carpet, the carpet needs ditching as its worn out. I want to keep the floorboard untouched because when we retire then I hope to have that rather than carpet or vinyl and the traffic being minimal so its not suitable for now.

I dont want to replace the office with carpet, its just going to get wrecked so I thought about vinyl but that would mean putting ply down which is then nailed/screwed into the old floorboards which I dont want to do. I did think about laminate but things do get dropped in the office so it'll get peppered in dents.

Im not a pro at DIY and not sure what the options are.

Thanks for you time in advance

 

[Deleted member 174758]

One of the issues with vinyl (and carpet) is that they will conform to any and all discrepancies in the sub-floor - which is why we sheeth floors. Laminate also conforms to a lesser extent. So the question may be how good or bad is the timber sub-floor?

6mm ply nailed down will be a lot less obtrusive and do a lot less (obvious) damage than screws. Bear in mind that the nails used to fix ply sheething down are in the region of 1.8 to 2mm shank diameter, flooring screws are 4mm shank, so the nail holes aren't that obtrusive. If your current boards are brilliant and clean, then I wouldn"t use sheething over them, but if they aren't that great I would ply sheeth, lay a skim of SLC over the top, and vinyl - later on you could alway lift the vinyl and lay laminate or engineered and plywood will not only take out a lot if the discrepancies in the floor (especially if 12mm is used), but will also reduce draughts and make the room warmer in winter

Personally I think carpet tiles may be the way to go - they'll absorb things being dropped on them damage or wear one out and it can be hidden (beneath a desk or cabinet) or simply replaced. But they do need a nice flat sub floor

 

[jitter340]

Thank you so much for your input Job, thats really helpful. I guess you're right on the nails and the SLC (presume you mean self leveling cement? sorry im not in on the lingo!) is a brilliant idea as the room does suffer draughts in the winter.

 

[foxhole]

You can use hardboard under vinyl fixed with staples very little by way of damage.

 

[jitter340]

Thanks foxhole, hadnt even thought of staples. Might need a bigger staple gun though, any recommendations?

 

[Deleted member 174758]

For hardboard and 3mm plywood you need a hammer stapler. Stanley does one so does Arrow