Said It Here

How to replace thin wood flooring in old, uneven houses

Thin or non-refinishable wood flooring in older, settling homes cannot be easily sanded down, making a full replacement a massive undertaking. Homeowners often struggle to find a workable strategy for handling these floors, especially when dealing with uneven subfloors and multiple ongoing renovation projects.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    Having a flooring technician screw down an underlayment and use glue-down LVP
  2. 2
    Tearing out old floors and putting down new plywood or OSB before laying LVP
  3. 3
    Pulling up thin hardwoods and installing tile

In their words

Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.

I'm struggling to figure out the best strategy to replace this flooring.source ↗

AHugeRedOnion · r/Flooring · 2 upvotes

I too probably have a snowballs chance in hell of refinishing mine.source ↗

But I’m in the same boat too. If I ever finish up my other projects the flooring on my 1st floor will a massive undertaking.source ↗

LaurenShisler · r/Flooring · 1 upvotes

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised