Week 21, Day 144

The title is how long the renovation has gone on as of Friday, April 18th. It’s how long we’ve been without a kitchen. How long we’ve lived in a space small enough to drive each other around the bend. How long we’ve had strangers in the house most of each weekday. It’s been “fun.”

I created a spreadsheet to work that out. It updates automatically every time I load it. Sometimes, you just have to know the real numbers.

Before I get to the latest news, I need to clarify a few things I was asked after the previous post went out, starting with:

And he [the flooring contractor] agreed that wood in the laundry room was the right answer, so we can simplify there.

Readers wondered, why is wood flooring in the laundry room the answer? What, in fact, was the question, and what were the alternatives to wood flooring in the laundry room?

Before I answer, let me step back briefly to set the context. The plan was to put an engineered wood floor down throughout the house with the exception of the bathroom (where we will use tile) and maybe the laundry room. We weren’t sure what to use on the floor in the laundry room, and as a result, we wanted to consult with the flooring installer and get his thoughts.

My concerns in the laundry room were water and noise. In that room we’ll have a washer and dryer, as well as a chest freezer. That stuff can get loud, and tile is a more live surface than wood. It echoes better, and I wasn’t sure I wanted tile as a result. On the other hand, there’s a washing machine and a sink in there, which means water at some level. Spills and leaks are possible, and water does more damage to wood than it does to tile. And what about vinyl flooring of some kind? Sheet vinyl could be water resistant and quieter than tile.

But our review of sheet vinyl left us thinking none of those products were well made and durable enough. There are nice vinyl tiles and planks, but then you have gaps or seams that water could seep through in the worst case.

Another potential concern of vinyl is that heavy equipment could leave indents in the floor, and while that might not matter for a washer and dryer (because there will always be equipment there to hide the marks), it could matter where the freezer goes. If the next owner doesn’t have a freezer, any indents left by our freezer would be visible.

In addition, any change from the wood in the rest of the house to a different flooring in the laundry room meant another transition, which are always awkward and should be avoided if possible.

Discussion with the flooring specialist led us to the conclusion that the right answer was to continue the wood floor into the laundry room. It will be reasonably quiet, and it can be repaired in the event of a significant water issue. He agreed that vinyl isn’t up to the standards we want, and while we could do tile, why have another transition going into that room?

So, wood flooring in the laundry room is the right answer for us, and that’s what we’re going to do.

Next, I mentioned the following about the concrete slab:

And it turns out we’re too wet. All over the house. I’m not clear on the units involved, but it seems the concrete should be in the mid-teens as a percentage, and we’re in the upper teens or even low twenties. He can’t glue the floor down in that case.

People asked things like, why is the slab wet? What does that mean? Where is the water coming from?

Again, stepping back for context, concrete is a mixture of sand, cement, rock, and water. And while I don’t want anyone quoting me on these numbers, it appears that cured (aka “dry”) concrete is generally about 15% to 17% water, give or take. There is a fancy tool that you can set down on the surface of the concrete to measure the water content.

If your concrete has too much water in it, there is some chemical reaction that goes on with the glue holding the floor down, causing it to fail. The time until it fails can vary, but it can sometimes be measured in weeks or months. A typical failure might just cause the floor to come loose, but if there is too much water, the flooring itself can also warp or cup.

So why is our slab too wet? Well, this is Vancouver, where if it doesn’t rain for 3.7 seconds or longer, something is very wrong. The ground here is always wet, and water moves from wet areas to dry ones. And concrete is porous, so water can move through it as a vapour. In our case, we think the water content is higher than normal because there is always new water in the ground, percolating through the concrete.

This can be avoided if there is a vapour barrier below the slab. A vapour barrier is just a sheet of thick plastic that keeps water out of the slab. But no one was installing vapour barriers in 1960 when our home was originally built, so groundwater can gradually move through the slab and into the house. And it could mess up glued-down flooring in the process.

I also mentioned that the new concrete put down in the kitchen was actually drier than the rest of the slab, and that’s because our contractors installed the vapour barrier in the area they opened up.

So, since we have this issue of concrete that is too wet, the alternative to glueing the floor down is to “float” it. That is, the wood planks are glued to each other, but not to the concrete slab. Such floors can shift with temperature and humidity more than a glued-down floor, but they won’t fail in the way a glued-down floor would.

Floating floors start with a vapour barrier (again, a layer of thick sheet plastic) on the concrete first, followed by a cushioning membrane (the underlayment) that allows the floor to move and muffles sound. It also acts as a small amount of insulation, making the floor somewhat warmer as well.

The biggest problem of floating floors (in my opinion) is what happens when you change from the wood floor to something else, like the tile in our new bathroom. Those transitions are places where the movement of the floating wood floor becomes an issue. If the floor was glued down, it could be right next to the tile, and everything would be fine. But since the floor can move, there will be a gap between the tile and the wood. Such gaps get covered with a transition strip. More about those below.

People also asked the following about floating floors:

Does the floating nature of the floor change heights relative to other things, causing tripping hazards or other issues?

Honestly, the difference in height between the glued-down floor and the floating floor will be minimal in our case. In terms of height difference, we’re comparing the thickness of the vapour barrier and the underlayment versus the glue. A vapour barrier is 6 mils (that’s 6 thousandths of an inch, or about 0.15 mm). The underlayment varies, but I’m told it is probably about 3/16" (or about 4.75 mm) thick but gets compressed under the wood. The thickness of the glue is anyone’s guess, but I’d assume it’s 1/16" to 1/8" on average. Something like that. So the total height difference is small, less than 1/4" in total. And given that the tile and the wood won’t be exactly the same thickness, they could end up exactly the same height. We’ll only figure this out when the flooring goes down.

Also, note that the only place the height different might matter is at a transition, and the only transition will be between the bathroom tile and the wood in the hallway, where there was already a potential height issue due to the different materials in use. There are no other places where the height change will matter. A difference in height of a couple of mm in toe kicks under the cabinets will be invisible, for example.

Finally, I was repeatedly asked:

How big of a problem is a transition?

The answer depends on two things: how much the height changes across the transition and just how much of a klutz you are. (Or, to put it more gently, those who are more coordinated will have fewer issues.)

Yours truly is a klutz. I can trip over anything. So height changes and transition strips are not my favourite things. And we will clearly have one in the entry to the new bathroom. However, it may not be a big deal.

Our tile setter says he suspects the tile will be slightly taller than the floor, but that remains to be seen. He hasn’t actually seen the flooring, and I haven’t seen the underlayment, so we’re all just guessing to some degree. But it is clear that the two floors will be relatively close in height.

If that is the case, and the transition is flat or nearly so, there are aluminium transition strips in various colours that can cover the gap and result in almost nothing to trip on. But if the transition is larger, then we’ll need a transition strip that hides the gap. How tall it will be — and thus how much of a tripping hazard it will present — depends on the difference in floor height on either side of the transition.

So far, it seems that will be minimal, but only time will tell. When we get the answer, I will include photos so you can tell how bad it is (or isn’t).

OK. Now that I have addressed the questions from last week, here are this week’s events:

The drywall finisher kept right on working and finished up today (Friday morning). There are a few things he didn’t address, things like nail holes in some existing walls. We’ll deal with those. Here are a couple of photos of the main living areas:

Note the condition of the floors. Drywall is a very messy thing in most cases.

The tile installer arrived on Monday to waterproof the shower pan in preparation for the inspection. And Tuesday morning saw us pass that needed inspection without a hiccup. The inspector was in the house for less than two minutes this time.

The tile guy returned after the inspection to get started on the tile itself. He continued working through Thursday (Friday is a holiday), and here’s where things stand there:

Note that the bathroom really isn’t that long and narrow. There’s a fisheye effect going on in that photo. But the floor tiles are set, and about half of the wall in the shower is done too. Work will continue on Monday.

On Thursday, the flooring contractor showed up to drop off eight bags of levelling cement. More is coming and will definitely be needed. At the moment we’re expecting to see them on Wednesday morning.

The order of operations has shifted a bit. The original plan had been to seal all the drywall and at least paint the ceilings before the flooring work got started, but it appears that has changed, and now we’re going to do flooring first.

And one more thing: our new radiators arrived in Montreal. I have no clue how they got from whatever port they arrived in to the city, but they will be here in about two weeks after a cross-country trip on a truck. Where we will put them at that point is anyone’s guess, but they have made it across the Atlantic ocean and into Canada.

There’s no news about the dog. She seems as fine as she can be, and we’re not aware of anything changing there. Her next appointment isn’t for another couple of weeks.

I will be busy in the coming weeks working on the next edition of the monthly community email, so my life will get weirder than normal once again. Feel free to send me a message and catch me up on your life. I welcome the distractions!