Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - laying a new pine floor over an old one

Hi,

My husband and I have been slowly restoring a 1880 home in Ontario canada. We have pulled up the carpeting on the upper level and have found the floors to be in worse shape than we thought. We are new to dealing with floors and are unsure as to what to do now. We have toyed with the idea of laying a new floor over the old one,but, the boards are very uneven, possibly ripping the old one up and putting in a new one, but, does that entail removing the walls as well or do we replace the bad floor boards and the different width boards and just paint? We can not sand the floors down as there is not enough surface above the T&G to allow us to do this. We would appreciate any advise or direction as to what and how to deal with our problem

Thanks,

PL

It is possible to remove the old original flooring. You have to be real careful not to cut electical if you need to cut away from a wall. If no joist or nailer/deadwood is there to support the end boards, it is not hard to do so once the old floor is removed.

Covering the existing wood floor with plywood to add dimensional stability to the subfloor, then preceding to install new hardwoods of your choice.

If the floor has reached the end of its useful life, nothing left to refinish, then a new floor seems to be in order. I guess that would entail removing the old flooring and installing new.

thanks, for your input....I forgot to mention there is no subfloor just the floor joists. Should we put a subfloor in? Like I said new to this flooring stuff!:)

PL

Consider sanding to level the old floor, screwing it down to the joists, laying 1/4 or 1/2 inch plywood (depending on old floor thickness reamaining), screw it down, and then lay the new floor. If you pull the old floor up, you will need a subfloor anyway. Might as well use the old floor for something.