Yellow Tongue Floating Floor Over uneven sub-floor

I've never tried this sort of thing but I have done a fair bit of renovating now and have found that the further you can strip anything back the better. i.e. filling and packing and sanding etc. takes a lot of time and effort, you need to come up with a way to get the base correct before laying anything on top if possible.

It is acceptable to sand yellow tongue but not 10-15mm.

Could you rip up the masonite and add packers along the top of each joist to get them flat before laying the flooring?

When you lay yellow tongue on a normal joist floor you are meant to put a bead of construction adhesive along all the joists first. This helps keep it attached but also takes up any gaps under the chipboard ... I think you should consider that too. Get a box of 20 tubes and don't be stingy!! Good luck.

Hey I'm all for thinking outside the square! Hopefully someone out there can help you further but I would say that yellow tongue is a lot more solid and heavy than what would normally be used for a floating floor so if doen properly I would think it could work. Just a couple more comments that you may not have considered?

- The tongues on yellow tongue aren't glued in ... so I guess you would have to remove them and glue them and replace them?
- Yellow tongue has a wax coating on it so that you can leave it in the weather for three months. I'm not sure how that would go with your polyurethene?
- Yellow tongue can be very hard to join together because they are 3600 long. On my subfloor I had to nail the first sheet down then use a sledge hammer to bang the next sheet flush at the join. You may need to think about how you will get the joins to butt up?

Hey Bob,

Thanks for that, I thought the coating was an estapol. And I had no idea about the tongue not being glued in.

Things won't be so bad manoeuvring the timber though, I'm having to get it cut in half just to get it into the building.

Wish I could get away with wood glue, I can't open a tube of contact cement with ending up covered in it.

G'day Ibay,

I'd be a bit careful about doing this. Generally using building materials for purposes other than what they are designed for is asking for trouble.

I'd strip the masonite, fix the flooring including all creaks etc. Then sand the floor flat and install a floating floor designed for that purpose. I'm sure that you can find one you like, but using particleboard as a substitute will fail.

Cheers
Pulse

OK , here's another idea

A floor I have see used as a base and stained brown, is plywood flooring. I think the one I saw was hoop pine, but it was stained a reddish brown and then polyurethane sealed to a very hard surface. The actual surface is better than yellow tongue and should take a finish well.

As to floating - I am guessing you are trying to achieve a sound deadening effect by doing this. If this is the case, then the floating floor people would have a rating and tests to show the acoustic de-coupling provides an advanatge - as this then would allow there use in some multistory complexes instead of concrete floors. I suspect that the difference between a thick dense floor nailed down over carpet underlay for instance and a floating one would be very small indeed.

As to nailing,. nailing down with a finishing gun, or bullet heads, a quick fill of holes and then stain is going to hide the nails very well indeed - look at dark old floors - you can hardly see the nails because of the finish.

Hey Pharmboy and Pawnhead,

I should have checked the forum before pressing send. And you're right about the glue, I know for a fact that I will end up covered in it just before a sudden gust of wind flings every piece of paper in my life at me.