The kitchen floor in our 1860 New England house has many layers. I count 5. We would like to replace the current floor. It's starting to break in many places and we hate it. Below our current floor is a subfloor with a lot of adhesive. Below that is old hardwood (or maybe pine) floor that was painted and has lead.
How should we approach this? Can we take away the first layer, scrape of the old adhesive and reuse the subfloor to ensure that the lead painted floor remains covered? Or would you recommend a different approach?
ps: We are still testing the subfloor for asbestos in the adhesive but I think the kitchen was last done in 2004.
Best Answer
I bet that floor squeaks really bad, I would be surprised if it doesn’t when you pull the stone and mortar. The reason the floor is breaking up is from movement.
Yes you can leave the lead paint it will be covered so there is no risk, the stone and mortar flooring , I have never tested that for asbestos because that would be uncommon.
I would remove the floor and sub floor at a minimum possibly even the next layer and redeck using t&g plywood this will be needed if you want to tile to prevent the new floor from doing the same as the current floor. If putting down vinyl I would still re deck but I hate squeaky floors and am a really big guy.