Hi there! My house currently has 3/4 or 5/8" thick, 1ft x 1ft oak parquet flooring over slab. The problem is that all around the exterior perimeter walls, there is severe termite damage, to the poitn where it is almost veneer!

I want to install new flooring. I was going to rip up all the old flooring, and installing some type of floating laminate or hardwood. But the parquet was glued down with some nasty black glue that has since hardened and makes for a very uneven surface.

So my new option is to rip up all the severely damages pieces, and replace with plywood. Then I want to install over the existing floor.

Question #1: Can I nail into oak parquet? Will the nail set deep enough? This way I don't have to float anything.

Question #2: I will be replacing my front door, but it needs to sit higher if I go over the existing floor. How can I build up the curb? I don't want to use lumber. I was thinking of blocking it in and pouring some concrete to raise the curb 1/2 -3/4 inch, maybe drive some tapcons in, wrap some wires around them to give it some reinforcment. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

If your existing flooring is that thick, I don't see why you couldn't nail flooring over the existing flooring. If you go with a hardwood floor you can use an air flooring stapler instead of a flooring nailer. The nailer comes with only one size nail where as the stapler you can use different length staples so the don't interfer with the slab.

You may want to contact the manufacture of the product you will install to see if fastening the floor to the existing floor is acceptable. If you float a floor, you could go over the existing floor w/o problems.

As for question 2, sounds good to me. Just make sure you have enough height in your doors rough opening. Most rough openings are 82-83" off the sub-floor (slab in your case). You may have to raise the header (you dont want to do that) or order a custom door. You can take off the interior moldings and measure the gap between the doors head jamb and the header. This will tell you how high you can get away with raiseing your door.

If you buying a prehung door, check the height of the threshold. You may not need to raise the door. Usually the thresholds are about an 1 1/4" to 1 1/2" high to compensate for flooring heights.