LESLIE: Now we’re going to talk with Ron about the number one question we get here at The Money Pit which is flooring. Welcome, Ron.
RON: Hey, I have a home that I’ve been in for 18 years and I’ve replaced all the flooring except for my kitchen and breakfast nook which has an old linoleum floor.
TOM: OK.
RON: And I had, I guess, a two-part question. One, I was wondering if I can put the new-type stick-on laminate floors that are out there; can I put that right on top of my old linoleum floor. The second question would be also I’ve been considering ceramic tile; can I stick it right on top of linoleum floor.
TOM: The answer is yes and yes. The laminate floors …
LESLIE: Is not going to stick; it’s going to floor.
TOM: It floats, right; exactly. It locks together. All of the types of laminates that are available today are sort of click and lock. They don’t have to be glued together anymore and they’ll sit right on top of that existing vinyl floor. If you want to install a ceramic tile surface, you’d probably nail down like a tile backer to the vinyl and then you’d go right over that. So one way or the other, you can go on top of that floor. You do not have to pick it up, Ron.
LESLIE: Now but Ron, you know with both you’re adding height to your floor situation; so you need to be concerned about any under-counter appliances, like a dishwasher, that you would have that might be compromised in how it fits into this situation with the new flooring. You don’t want to, certainly, trap anything in place by adding this new floor and new thickness and now you can’t pull out the dishwasher if something breaks. So you need to take that into consideration as well.
RON: Hey, I appreciate that because I hadn’t taken that into consideration. Some of the other floors that I have tiled previously have cracked along with my foundation; they follow the lines of the foundation. So I was wondering if maybe having that type of linoleum floor there would prevent the cracking that I’ve seen elsewhere.
TOM: Maybe …
LESLIE: Well, you get the cracking because there’s movement …
TOM: Yeah.
LESLIE: … in the subfloor underneath. So if the surface that you put the tile on before previously had a lot of movement to it or was uneven or unsteady, that’s why you see the cracking.
TOM: I think also you’re going to find that the laminate floors today are extremely durable and much more comfortable underfoot than the ceramic tiles too, Ron.
LESLIE: And certainly an easier project to install than tile, I think.
RON: Great. Hey, I appreciate y’all’s help today.
TOM: You’re welcome, Ron. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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