Flooring – put snap together wood flooring over bathroom subfloor. Is this effective

bathroomflooring

Due to water damage I needed to repair a section of my particle board bathroom subfloor. This ruined the linoleum, which we removed. Now I want to put snap together flooring in. What do I need to do to prep flooring?

Best Answer

There's a lot of problems with this

  • particle board subfloor
  • snap-in wood flooring
  • bathroom flooring

Your bathroom is a wet zone. Wood floor/subfloor and water don't go together. Add in

Due to water damage I needed to repair a section of my particle board bathroom subfloor

and you have a recipe for disaster. The water will penetrate a wood floor and wreck your wood subfloor again. What you need here is

  1. Waterproof membrane. Could be a vapor barrier, but could also be something like waterproof cement board or polyethylene underlayment. Make sure to use an approved method to seal the seams. You do NOT want to have to tear the floor up to repair subfloor.
  2. Waterproof flooring. Tile used to be the only product here, but floating floor vinyl has become more common on the market. Because it's 100% vinyl, it won't be harmed by water, and it goes down like any other floating floor. Do not use wood flooring in a bathroom (especially solid hardwood), as these floorings respond poorly to repeated water exposure.