Who's idea was this carpet stuff?

I just got finished cleaning our livingroom carpet. The livingroom is about 14x20, with 15 year old wall to wall. The only thing this stuff is good at is holding stains and holding odor. The bad thing is that it's only been about 6 months since I cleaned it thoroughly. I probably got 5 pounds of gunk out of the pile after vacuuming the best our POS Kenmore could.

So really, who thought it was a stupendous idea to install something that is impossible to properly clean once installed? I can clean pretty much any other surface really well in about 20 minutes. It took seriously 2 hours to make this carpet look 10 years old.

Since we're on the subject, we've been talking about a minor remodel. New kitchen, new bathroom, new carpets throughout. My parents have laminate, and it's alright and all, but I want something that's not going to look old in 10 years and not be able to be refinished. I'm thinking solid wood. My issue is I live in a slab house. How would you go about installing hardwood on a slab? I've only worked with houses that had wood subfloors, so this whole slab thing is new to me. Could the knowledge that is GRM point me in the right direction?

bamboo, glue it down. sounds wrong, and soft, but its not. bamboo is about middle of the road as far as hardwood floors go (pretty tough), refinishable, green, inexpensive, and green. Check it out.

Engineered hardwood.

Hardwood top layer, plywood underneath and it clicks together like laminate. It can be resurfaced once - maybe twice.

my kid has blowout diaper poops regually due to a daily medicine.

Carpet is gross.

akamcfly wrote: Engineered hardwood. Hardwood top layer, plywood underneath and it clicks together like laminate. It can be resurfaced once - maybe twice.

This. Or laminate.

I love carpet, but i've gotten to the point that when i have my own house, i will have wall to wall carpeting NOWHERE. Area rugs only.

Lay concrete in all your rooms. Polish it. It'll look SWEET.

I will say one thing for carpeting - if you're a bit lazy with the vacuuming, it hides dust a million times better than laminate/engineered/whatever does. In my apartment (~100 year old building, no forced air) which has all laminate floors I can't miss a week.

I am no fan of carpet but at least it is easy. I can't figure out the point of putting tile on anything but concrete slab. We spent gazillions redoing our bathroom less than a year ago and we already have grout cracks in a couple of places where there is the tiniest bit of flex in the floor.

Otto Maddox wrote: I am no fan of carpet but at least it is easy. I can't figure out the point of putting tile on anything but concrete slab. We spent gazillions redoing our bathroom less than a year ago and we already have grout cracks in a couple of places where there is the tiniest bit of flex in the floor.

You used cemet backer right? And made sure that the seams of the backer are all taped together and the backer is glued/screwed the subfloor... and the grout seems don't coincide with the seams in the backer?

In reply to Derick Freese:

I hate carpeting. You only have to remove it once to see that no matter how good you cleaned it, it's a mess of stuff that's bad for you. I'm in the process of doing the majority of the house in hardwood. I was fortunate in that 3 of our five bedrooms already had nice hardwood under the carpet. Next up is the dining room, kitchen and family room, which will all get done together.

I have a pile of cartons of bamboo flooring in my dining room as I type. It is going in my son's bedroom this weekend. I've put in hardwood before in my previous house, but not on a slab.

I think the bamboo green thing is overstated because my particular brand is a product of China and I think they probablly grind up pandas to make the resin to hold it all together.

Ignorant wrote:

Otto Maddox wrote: I am no fan of carpet but at least it is easy. I can't figure out the point of putting tile on anything but concrete slab. We spent gazillions redoing our bathroom less than a year ago and we already have grout cracks in a couple of places where there is the tiniest bit of flex in the floor.

You used cemet backer right? And made sure that the seams of the backer are all taped together and the backer is glued/screwed the subfloor... and the grout seems don't coincide with the seams in the backer?

Yeah, we did our bathroom in tile about 9 years ago and it's fine. I won't do it again because the floor gets so cold in the winter, but it still looks good. We did use cement board under it.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: Lay concrete in all your rooms. Polish it. It'll look SWEET.

I never thought of that, but it would look nice. But what if you have a basement?

bravenrace wrote:

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: Lay concrete in all your rooms. Polish it. It'll look SWEET.

I never thought of that, but it would look nice. And put radiant floor heat in it at the same time. But what if you have a basement?

In reply to Ignorant:

Yes, Yes, Yes...

The problem areas are where the tile on the side of the tub area meet the floor and where the lip of the shower meets the floor.

And doing all that stuff you listed is another reason why I hate tile on wood subfloor. The preparation is immense.

In reply to bravenrace:

My brother in law did that in his house. I really like it, but it gets to be a bit much. If it was my house, I'd go back and carpet some or at least put down some huge area rugs.

Hard flooring is cold. I hate cold.

In reply to scardeal:

Yeah, cold. And god help me if my two little ones were upstairs running around on wood floors instead of well padded carpet.

I love the look, feel, etc. of hardwoods. That said, holy E36 M3 is it hard to keep it looking nice. Foot prints show up, dust bunnies are always on the offensive, etc. Carpet looks nice with relatively little maintenance.

I call on builders and get to see all kinds of floors in homes. The builders have quit using bamboo, not because they don't like the look but because it's not durable. If they put it in a model home that has any traffic it's dented and creased up on 3-6 months and needs to be replaced because it makes the house look bad. Yeah, I know the ads tout how tough it is, but really, it's not. Ladies heels will do it in in a heartbeat!

I've done stained regular concrete and it's great. I have textured and stained concrete in the major portion of my house now and except for a few levelling issues with an end table or 2 it's even better. Unfortunately you have to do the texturing when the concrete is wet so you can't retrofit it.

My wife worried that the concrete floors would be cold, but we learned with our first concrete floor that the concrete stays reasonably warm during the winter. The hot water lines and the heat in the house kept it warm, except for about a foor right around the exterior walls. Now we do live in Tejas so you guys living in the still frozen north might have a little different experience there.

The noise of a wood floor is what many people hate about them, but you can tame that noise. They make underlayments for the laminate floors that quietens them down. I had them in the previous house and really liked them. Just like wood you need to pay attention to the pattern when you lay them and look at the pattern on each piece as you lay them so that it doesn't look repetitive. You begin in a 1-2-3 or a 1-2-3-4 pattern which simply means #1 is the shortest and #4 is the longest. This helps break up the seams and the visual.

Do not put laminate in any of your wet rooms like the kitchen or the bath. Laminate will swell if it gets wet. Not 2 weeks after I laid the kitchen in my old house the dishwasher overflowed and needed to be replaced, well so did the floor.

I had a dark stained "manchurian maple" floor put in my house where all the vinyl had been in the kitchen and front hall about 3 years ago. It ain't real maple which is rock hard, this stuff dents if you look at it wrong. Used to drive me batty but now I just consider it "character", and I've got enough left over to re-do half the floors when the dents finally get to me.

I too hate carpet - it holds dust and dirt, it stains, and it wears out and looks like hell after a few years. This thread reminds me that I do need to clean the carpets in my place, they need it badly.

I've got a house that was built in 1942, with old school hardwood laid on the joists and no sub-floor. When I moved in I completely refinished the floor and hit it with a few coats of Polyurethane. It looked great, but after 7 years it's clear I'm going to have to reapply some of the Poly in high traffic areas.

That's still better longevity than carpet, though. In addition, we don't freak out of somebody spills something; it just mops right up.

However, we have pets. If we don't sweep and use a dust mop every day it looks like a fur explosion.

bravenrace wrote:

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: Lay concrete in all your rooms. Polish it. It'll look SWEET.

I never thought of that, but it would look nice. But what if you have a basement?

Construction might not be the same.... but i live on the second floor in my apartment, and my floors are concrete slabs.

Don't know about normal residential though, the weight MAY be too much, but i'm not the one to ask, there.

Don't wear your shoes inside the house and keeping up with woodfloors is not too bad. We do not have any pets though.

So, unless I missed it, did anyone actually answer the OP's question about hardwood on a slab?

the click together wood flooring kits work really well......my parents house has those throughout, mine has some of it but mostly original hardwood and recent laminate, and the 3rd house on the homestead has ornamental bordered original hardwood(discovered under carpeting).......all 3 houses are pre-1900.....lol