i am redoing my laundry room,ipulled up the sheet vinyl floor that was down for a floor. now i have tongue and groove 2 1/2 inch wide boards it is verysolid(possibly cherry )i want to put a new floor down tile is out due to a door that swings in and is steel( i will not cut or move)it has 3/4 inch gap to floor..question #1 how would i smooth out old wood florr(compound type materil) question #2 the floor they sell in lowes or homedepot the strip kind which is best in a laundry room question#3 is it glue to floor or just snaps together and lay on old floor, i need a litle insight. thanks for any replies. [

Question #1: How do I smooth out the old wooden flooring?

The standard way of doing that is with a cement based floor leveling compound like Mapei "Planipatch" available at Home Depot and other fine stores. Basically, Planipatch comes as a very fine powder that you mix with water to make a thick slurry, and you spread that slurry over your floor with an ordinary plastering trowel. Then set a bright light on the floor to make every little blip stand out, and scrape anything sticking up off with a tungsten carbide paint scraper and mark any depressions in with some chaulk (or a pencil). Vaccuum up what was scraped off, and put on a second coat. Now, sand the floor smooth, vaccuum up, and you're ready to install your new flooring.

Points:
a) Mapei makes an additive (pronounced "adhesive") called "Planipatch Plus" to mix into your Planipatch. The additive makes the Planipatch stick better and dry harder. So, don't use any additive in your top coat to make the floor easy to sand smooth as a baby's bum.

b) What I do, and have gotten excellent results with on my floors is, after I spread the top coat (with no additive in it), I sand the floor smooth, and then use a paint roller sleeve to paint the soft Planipatch with the "Plus" additive dilluted with two parts water. The additive will be wicked into the dry patch, and glue all the cement grains together as it dries, thereby making the surface of the floor harder. Keep applying diluted additive and allowing time for it to dry until the Planipatch no longer darkens when you paint more additive on. At that point, the planipatch has absorbed all the additive it can, any applying any more will just result in an additive film over top of the Planipatch.

Question #2: What kind of flooring to use in a laundry room?

Personally, I think the best choice for flooring in a laundry room is synthetic rubber flooring. That's because the coefficient of friction between rubber on rubber is one of the highest there is, and that means good traction in a potentially wet area.

No, neither Home Depot nor Lowes is going to sell synthetic rubber flooring, but it's one of the only floorings I can think of that can stand up to a 150 pound washing machine with 200 pounds of water in it trying to spin an unbalanced load of laundry.

The biggest name in synthetic rubber flooring is "Johnsonite", and they have a web site where you can look at all the different floorings they sell at:

http://www.johnsonite.com

You can order synthetic rubber flooring from any store that sells carpet and other kinds of flooring.

I have Johnsonite synthetic rubber stair treads on the front and back stair cases of my building, and the stuff is bullet proof.

Question #3:
I'd be reluctant to use a plastic laminate under a washing machine. Not only would the washer mark up the new flooring as it dances around your laundry room with an unbalanced load, I'd be concerned that if the washer started leaking, that leakage could get under you laminate flooring and cause wood rot to set in on your cherry hardwood flooring.

Johnsonite sells the adhesives for their synthetic rubber floor tiles.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nestor,

For a laundry room, your best bang for the buck will be a good grade of sheet vinyl flooring. I know that's basically what you have just removed but there it is.

thanks NESTOR and JAYBE, i appreciate the insight, now we will have to consider the spending issu. LOL

If this was a bathroom, I'd agree with Jaybee.

That's cuz in a bathroom you never slide anything heavy across the floor.

But I've seen so many posts from homeowners who are wanting to repair their sheet vinyl kitchen flooring that was torn (or otherwise damaged) as a result of moving a fridge or heavy stove across that kitchen floor.

I don't know if this is true for all sheet vinyl, but I know some sheet vinyl flooring manufacturers recommend using pieces of plywood on the floor under the fridge to move the fridge over their sheet vinyl. The idea is that you tilt the fridge back and slip the plywood under it. Then you pull upward on the fridge to slide it onto the plywood. And from there on you keep moving the plywood and sliding the fridge onto the moved plywood.

Depending on what repair needs to be done, you very well may have to slide your washer and dryer over your laundry room flooring to perform repairs.

Another option that wasn't mentioned so far is REAL linoleum like Marmoleum or Congoleum. This is an attractive flooring that's suitable for a laundry room, and much more durable than sheet vinyl. But, when push comes to shove, it's still not as strong and durable as synthetic rubber.

You install real linoleum exactly the same same way as you install sheet vinyl, and sheet vinyl is (besides painting the floor) the easiest flooring for a newbie DIY'er to install.

If you're not clear on how to install sheet vinyl, ask.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nestor,