# Uneven Concrete slab



## gtimk4 (Mar 21, 2010)

Hi! all flooring experts, I really need some help from you guys.
My wife and I are in process of buying our first home. However, the one we are going to buy has some tricky flooring issue, since we are under a very tight budget, we are going to DIY most of it. so, I need some of your opinion.

The whole house is slab on grade. When I first pull out the existing carpet, I found out that the dinning area slab (about 8'x15') is 3/4" higher than the rest of the house. The previous owner use 3/4" wood flooring cover the whole house to match the dinning area slab, then put a carpet to cover it. The existing wood floor is ugly and is out of sharp.

Original we are thinking about either do a DIY stain concrete floor or engineer wood floor. But now, I need to find a way to level the sub-floor first since I prefer not to have any step on the fllooring. Here is my questions:

1) Is it OK to resurface the existing hardwood floor and glue the new engineering wood floor on top? if so, What kind of treatment I need to aware of?
2) Another way I can think of is to remove all the existing hardwood floor, then glue a layer of 3/4" plywood subfloor on top of existing slab, then put the engineer wood floor on top. But then, that mean I need to pay for all the extra plywood just to level the small dinner area slab. And I'm worry that the transition is never gonna be smooth since the recess slab is not exactly 3/4" everywhere. 
3) For the new plywood subflooring, I talked to home depot worker, they told me to use "CDX" plywood, however, the plywood seems very curvy and isn't flat or smooth, would that be a problem?
4) would you guys recommend I pour a 3/4" topping slab over the existing slab to make it level everywhere?
5) Is it out of the question if I take out the 3/4" dinning room slab instead of rising the rest of he house floor?

The house is about 1,200 SF. Any info is greatly appreciated.

Thanks


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## Bud Cline (Mar 21, 2010)

Your slab is serving as the footings for your walls so forget taking out the slab.

CDX would be worst plywood you could use to build up the lower floor, so forget that.  If you go that route you would need to use BC Ply Exposure1.

Self levelling Compound could be used to pour over the lower floor but that will likely break the bank.

You could contact a Ready Mix company and see what it would cost to pour grout over the lower floor.  That would be less expensive than anything else in the cement line probably.


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## oldognewtrick (Mar 22, 2010)

miles11we said:


> id suggest just flooding the house with 3" of clear epoxy/resin haha, not really thats prolly a really bad idea. but yes CDX would be a very poor choice, if i was to pick out any type of wood i would go to a lumber yard, never home depot..i have never ... ever seen a straight piece of lumber in that place and on top of that its probably one of the most expensive places iv ever shopped for lumber before



all this from a 16 year old welder, wow.


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## Bud Cline (Mar 22, 2010)

dog,

Where is that quote coming from?


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## oldognewtrick (Mar 22, 2010)

Bud Cline said:


> dog,
> 
> Where is that quote coming from?



From someone who couldn't play by the rules.


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