Return to the Building a Home Forum | Post a Follow-Up

 o
Flooring...hardwood and tile transition

Posted by buildinnj (My Page) on
Wed, May 11, 11 at 16:45

We are doing hardwood throughout our house and tiles in the foyer, kitchen and dinette area. We haven't picked the tile out for either of these places yet but our contractor is telling us that there will be a 3/4 lip between the entry points where it goes from hardwood to tile. To compensate for this transition he is suggesting adding another layer of plywood to the areas that will be hardwood so it will be level to the tiles. Is what he is saying accurate? The other thing is he is charging us approximately an additional 5k for the gluing down an extra layer of plywood (which seems high to me).

What I don't get is if we go with the standard tile per the contract shouldn�t this have already been taken into account? Not sure why he is already asking us for the money when we haven't even selected the tiles for those areas yet.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.


Follow-Up Postings:

 o
RE: Flooring...hardwood and tile transition

Your hardwood flooring supplier should have many types of transition mouldings that match up with your hardwood. Even if you fir up the tiled areas to plane in with the hardwood, your still going to need a transition moulding seperating the two floors. Unless you have a honkin' big kitchen, dining, foyer areas, 5k sounds like you are being gouged big time, imo to lay down some plywood.


 o
RE: Flooring...hardwood and tile transition

Actually, our hardwood floors are in plane with our tile floors and we don't have any transition moulding. There is just colored calking between the joint. And now that I think about it, our tile is in plane with our carpet as well and no transition moulding there either.

Photobucket

Photobucket


 o
RE: Flooring...hardwood and tile transition

My transition from hardwood to tile looks just like Sherrilea's. No special moulddings. We did recently replace the tile and the new porcelain tile was much thinner than the old thick spanish-style tile that we ripped up. The tile installer used some type of cement to raise the floor to match the hardwood height. The section that has tile is on a slab.


 o
RE: Flooring...hardwood and tile transition

How can there be a 3/4"difference? Your subfloor starts level in these two areas. Your hardwood is 3/4". For tiled areas, you have some type of hardibacker board (1/4 usually),then mortar, then your tile is 1/4" or 3/8". They should be equal or very close. I'd be nervous about the contractor if he is somehow getting an extra 3/4 inch under the tile. Even if he used thicker hardibacker it would only be 1/8" different or so.


 o
RE: Flooring...hardwood and tile transition

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I didn't really understand where he was coming from when we had this discussion initially then out of the blue yesterday we get a change order request with this as a line item.

Right now everything is even and we haven't picked any of the flooring options (the hardwood or tiles) and he is already asking for the cost to add additional plywood.

5K sounded absurd to me to put down an extra layer of plywood. The total surface area is 4K sq feet that's a 1.25 a sq foot for plywood!!!


 o
RE: Flooring...hardwood and tile transition

It depends on the layout whether transition mouldings are needed. In the above posters hardwood to tile it's at an opening with the hardwood running with the opening and looks nice without moulding, but in open areas where there are large runs butting up to the two different floorings, transition mouldings are used when the hardwood is perpindicular or even at angles one to the other. The op has large areas kitchen, dining, foyer where depending on layout, more than likely would need mouldings where the two meet when perpindicular. An alternative to transitions is running a band of hardwood matching the flooring with the tile but perpindicular to the hardwood runs. Tha takes woodworking,(milling), that some installers wouldn't make time for.


 o Post a Follow-Up

Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum.

    If you are a member, please log in.

    If you aren't yet a member, join now!


Return to the Building a Home Forum

Instructions

  • You must be a registered member and logged in to post messages on our forums.
  • Posting is a two-step process. Once you have composed your message, you will be taken to the preview page. You will then have a chance to review the contents and make changes.
  • After posting your message, you may need to refresh the forum page in order to see it.
  • It is illegal to post copyrighted material without the owner's consent.
  • HTML codes are allowed in the message field only.
  • No advertising is allowed in any of the forums.
  • If you would like to practice posting or uploading photos, please visit our Test forum.
  • If you need assistance, please Contact Us and we will be happy to help.



 
Click here to learn more about in-text links on this page.