Home Flooring Question

[SwampSurvivor]

So have a weird one here. Not sure how to go about it.

I bought a house that had some ... structural issues. Finally getting that sorted out and the floors are now somewhat level-ish. Enough that I can finally start putting down a new floor.

However ... I have a bit of a situation that I'm not sure how to solve.

This house is on a crawlspace. I'm too big to fit in through the crawlspace windows comfortable. There's 3 hatches throughout the 1st floor that provide access to the crawlspace. I'd like to keep them.

Right now , the living room has a carpet down so that hides one of them. The "sun room" / porch ... thingy ... has no flooring down and is just the plywood which I pick up as needed. Kitchen has two hatches that provide access to the cluster that I will need to keep for a while.

I'm planning on going with something similar to this (probably not from lowes, but easiest to link)

https://www.lowes.com/pd/SMARTCORE-Ultra...lank/1000196677

Any idea on how I could use this type of flooring and affix it to the hatches I have made? 2 of the hatches have hinges, the third does not ... and the fourth isn't so much a hatch as it is a 5x4 floor that is completely removeable.

Thanks!

Also taking suggestions on where I can get this type of flooring rather cheap. The house isn't worth nice or real hardwood floors. I just want something that can make it until I decide to sell or rent it out with the occasional piece replaced here and there.

 

[knerml]

This is a floating floor. Not glued down.

You should be able to pull the floor up and reinstall, as needed.

However, I don't know how practical this is, or how often you will need to do this....

 

[Leo99]

What's down there in the crawl space and why do you need 3 hatches to get down there? Are three 3 separate sections under the floor?

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: Leo99
What's down there in the crawl space and why do you need 3 hatches to get down there? Are three 3 separate sections under the floor?


The crawlspace isn't big enough to move around between spots too easily. I am also doing some pretty significant structural work to the house and end up with all the hatches open while jacking / performing structural work. A year ago, this house had pretty much completely collapsed on one side.


Originally Posted By: knerml
This is a floating floor. Not glued down.

You should be able to pull the floor up and reinstall, as needed.

However, I don't know how practical this is, or how often you will need to do this....


It's floating but they all interlock. I'm not sure how to cut them and have it look decent and still have hatch-ability.

 

[dishdude]

Yes they interlock, but they aren't attached to anything. It's literally just laying there floating over the floor.

Since it is a small hatch, you could experiment with gluing it down or framing it in like a picture with some moulding.

If the floors aren't level, this probably isn't the right type of flooring for this install.

 

[EdwardC]

I would just use an appropriate vinyl flooring adhesive. I think you'll have a much harder time trimming out the hatch and the hole to look good and flat than attaching the flooring. Maybe something like this: https://www.lowes.com/pd/IVC-Flex-Tech-C...-fl-oz/50426256

 

[earlyre]

 

[JC1]

Can you post a PIC of these hatches? Whatever you do, it probably wont be pretty.

Vinyl flooring isn't the toughest thing out there. You probably want a proper gap on the hatches for access and to not cause damage from opening and closing. I have that allure flooring in my basement installed over top dricore panels. One piece of the flooring located one step after the bottom step the middle developed a crack and I thought it was the dricore separating. I used a heat gun to replace the piece. I guess the heavy traffic on that part of the floor caused it. The dricore was fine no separation between panels.


You might have better luck than me.

 

[AZjeff]

There's a product called luxury vinyl plank flooring, you can get it in glue-down. Might be something to look at. Easy to work with, looks good and can be relatively inexpensive. Here's some from HD: http://www.homedepot.com/b/Flooring-Viny...1vZbzjzZ1z0vhmk

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: AZjeff
There's a product called luxury vinyl plank flooring, you can get it in glue-down. Might be something to look at. Easy to work with, looks good and can be relatively inexpensive. Here's some from HD: http://www.homedepot.com/b/Flooring-Viny...1vZbzjzZ1z0vhmk


I think I may end up going with that and gluing it / cutting it to the different floor sections. I heard there is a product we can spread on the plywood subfloor to make it close to level.

At this point, the floors are, at most, an inch difference in the same room. Before it was 9'' lower on one side.