Floor Dilemma (tile Failure)

Knyte260

Tile was installed in kitchen on 3/4 particle board subfloor (not OSB, worse than OSB), then 1/4 hardibacker thinsetted and screwed down. Tile is a butt joint marble, about 200SqFt with many areas of cracking.

Is there anything short of removing the bottom layer of subfloor that I can do here to install hardwood? I was thinking remove tile, use 1/2 ply with thinset over cement board ( which will be a mess, hopefully thinset will level it out ok), screw that down, and then hardwood on the top?

Really could use some advice here. Taking the whole floor out will be a nightmare because of newly installed base cabinets and granite counters.

-Chris

Steve Unkie

'Chris,
Your 3/4'' underlayment is toast, it soaked up all that moisture from the thinset, expanded and is no longer sound underlayment. Remove it and start over or I do believe you'll live to regret it. IMHO
Good luck.

Steve Unkie.

Big Dave

Particle board is never a good underlayment for hardwood. It has to be removed and a good plywood or advantech laid in its place. As for the cabinets you need to invest in a good toekick saw to cut right up next to them to remove the old subfloor. Make sure and block between joist where the old and new subfloor meet.

Dave.

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Do one thing at a time, do it well, then move on.
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Knyte260

Lemme get one thing straight on this just to be sure. I'm not really cutting to the edge of ALL the base cabinets. Only the side that runs perpendicular to the joists. On the side of the base cabs that run PARALLEL with the joist structure, I cut to the joist NEAREST the base cab right? This would apply also to adjacent rooms and such.

Then as far as blocking, I block a perimeter between the joists on the cabs that were toe kick cut flush. On the parallel cabinet run, I just sister a nailer onto the existing joist the full run.

This is going to be an absolute nightmare. There is also a closet I have to deal with, I'm not sure quite what to do about that yet. Probably leave just one joist to joist layer of particle board underneath that wall of the closet.

Big Dave

Are you sure that there is not a subfloor under the particle board. In the old days they would lay 1 by 12 on the diagonal then frame the walls then go back in and lay particle board on top of that. There is no way that it can be particle board on top of joist because it is not structural enough to support the weight of even a non load bearing wall. I would pull a register vent and look to see if there is anything under the particle board other than joist. Hope this helps.

Dave.

__________________
Do one thing at a time, do it well, then move on.
http://www.bigdaveswoodworks.com