Even out subfloor for floating floor

Q: In removing vinyl tile from a subfloor, some of the plywood layer came up with the tiles. There are still spots with a lot of glue on them in which the tiles came up fine. I checked and saw that this is only a 3/8″ thick piece of plywood, evidently put in over a plywood sub floor before the current tile that I am removing. What do I do to get this ready for a 3/8″ thick bamboo click together floating floor?

A: There are multiple options but you will have to decide which one is best and less costly. If you can remove the remaining adhesive sufficiently that it is flat by sanding it off or scraping chiseling then that is the way to go. If the it is in bad shape it may be best to remove it down to what it is sitting on and then decide if you need to install a smooth ¼ for example. One of the issues with engineered and laminate click together floors is they have fairly severe tolerances when it comes to flatness of the sub floor. Dips you can deal with. Humps are much more serious.

Related Q: 3/4″ Floor to sand and finish has a small hump. What is the tolerance (1/4″ in 6ft…)?

A: To be honest I don’t recall the figure for that with solid 3/4 but if you are talking 1/4 over 6 feet isn’t really significant. Especially if the floor is running end to end over this slight hump. It probably also would not take much effort to run a planer over the area to ease it out a bit if you like. Requirements are much more rigid when installing laminates because those panels don’t bend.

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