Taking care of the heavy sitters

In most cases, you don’t need a subfloor with One Step, but there may be situations where heavier than normal loads make one necessary. Installing a freezer, a billiard table or anything else heavy or point-loaded, for instance, will require compression resistance. Sometimes a subfloor can provide a flat, more stable base on which to nail, glue or ‘click’ your flooring material.

The best choice for your sub floor is ½” or 5/8” plywood. Plywood is cross-stranded for strength and, because marine grade glues are used in manufacture, it does not delaminate when wet like less expensive OSB. OSB also has a waxy coating that might conflict with flooring adhesives. Furthermore, some offshore OSB products contain amounts of VOC’s that might be contrary to air quality requirements, home warranties, building codes or condominium rules.

Use either two layers of ½” or one layer of 5/8” plywood, depending on the nature of the flooring material. Remember, dimensional stability and compression-resistance are the objectives, so if your flooring is pliable linoleum versus nailed-down hardwood, consider the double layer option.

A plywood sub floor on its own will not deliver the thermal break you are looking for. But in conjunction with DMX 1-Step, your customer will enjoy their basement space for years to come.