I am wondering if anyone has experience with a glueless floating hardwood floor? I read about Glueless floating hardwood floor on FloorFacts.com and I like the idea of a real wood floor rather than using a laminate floor. I could go staple down but I would rather avoid it. Any comments would be appreciated.

The only diffrence with this floor and a laminate floor is the top coating. Laminates tend to have a plastic top while these hardwood floors have a wood top.

With all floating floors you need to be sure that
1. Floor is clean and level.
2. Floor material has been left in the area in which it is to be installed for several days.
3. That you follow the manufactures directions to the T. Otherwise if you have any problems later on your warranty will not be void.
4. Be sure that the floor your placing this onto is dry. Also if the floor is over a damp basement or crawl space that that is corrected BEFORE you place the floor down. Otherwise it will cup and swell. Not a good thing.
5. Be sure to leave the proper amount of space around the edge as required. I have seen great floors buckle and bow because of not enough room for expansion.
6. Be sure that this floor can be placed in the area you wish it to go. Many of these floors have been placed in kitchens and baths only to find that the edges swelled up because of increased moisture from baths and moping of kitchens.
7 Be sure to understand the wearing of the floor. Do you have dogs? Is this going into a main entrance area? Be sure to have plenty of throw rugs around to pick up loose dirt that comes into the house. As many of these engineered floors have a very thin wear layer that once scratched cannot be fixed.

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Originally posted by reboot:
I am wondering if anyone has experience with a glueless floating hardwood floor? I read about Glueless floating hardwood floor on FloorFacts.com and I like the idea of a real wood floor rather than using a laminate floor. I could go staple down but I would rather avoid it. Any comments would be appreciated.

I am a do it yourself guy, so this is based on experience not years of experience in the trades. I recently did four rooms and a closet with engineered hardwood that I bought at SimpleFloors (great prices if you shop them correctly). Before I did this installation I had done the majority of three houses with 3/4 inch red oak. Now some questions. If you are doing the installation over a wood subfloor (because you have a raised floor instead of a slab), I would suggest that you do a nail down installation. It will give you a nice quite surface and because you are using a thick real wood flooring you can sand and refinish several times (start with a prefinished wood....much less work and issues than sanding and finishing bare wood).

The floating installation that I just did was on a concrete slab, so I had to either glue it down (like tile using glue) or do a floating floor. I went with the floating floor. When you do that, you need to use an underlayment like cork. You have to be careful with the cork, because it tears very easily or can get holes if you hit it with the mallet you use to tap the tongue-and-groove floor pieces together. The only issue that you will always have with a floating floor is unless the floor is perfectly level (and slabs never are) you will get some popping and cracking when you walk on it and the floor is flexing because of the different levels. One final thing about engineered flooring, get the thickest real wood surface (on the plywood backing) that you can. You will only be able to refinish once or if lucky twice during the life of the floor, and if you drop something with a blunt edge, you can nick the floor. I would not suggest floating or attempting to glue down 3/4 inch thick real wood. I have not tried it, but I have friends that had professional installations, and there floor is like walking on bubble wrap (pop and crack). One final consideration. The latest installation was in the california desert, so I went with the engineered flooring to combat the extremely dry conditions. The other floors were all in the northern california valley region. If you have wide variances in winter moisture and summer dryness, you will naturally get some very minor ridging at the seams. It is almost impossible (or at least my installations turned out that way) to avoid. But if it bothers you, wait a couple of years until the floor cures, and then have it sanded and refinished. Then you will have a smooth as glass floor for years. I would send pictures of the installation, but I cannot figure out how to attache a picture.