Everything starts with fixing the sag first. Lake house and saggy floor usually equals moisture damage to a supporting member. Take care of first things first before dealing with the cosmetic coverings.

Your contractors floor guy is right. You want as level as possible. Uneveness can cause squeaks and can even break boards. You could do some floor prep to help even out the slope

Thanks for the quick responses!

hollysprings: The POs hired someone last summer to shore up a couple of supports. There is still a slight dip in the center though. The home inspector and our contractor have both had a look and proclaimed it "old settling". Anything we should look for in the future that would tell us we have a problem?

gregmills: I think the floor guy may be planning to do something to the subfloor -- according to our contractor.

Based on our local store's willingness to sell us a floor that might not be suitable -- would you still consider their bid, or would that be a deal breaker for you?

First order of flooring install of any type is addressing its foundation. Prep for tile and hard flooring includes making sure the floor is level and flat, even if it's glued. There are tolerances to be met for that. Deal breaker for any outfit that skips prep.

A designer might not get into that with you. It's the installer's job.

Make sure your contract states the prep that will be done.

When he says glue down, does he mean the very flexible sheet type of vinyl flooring that comes in strips that look like hardwood?

This post was edited by snookums2 on Tue, Apr 1, 14 at 0:32

FLAT is what you want..."level" is unimportant for flooring.

The only flooring choices that can be successful installed over a not flat substrate are resilient sheet and tile products that are adhered and carpet-like coverings.

Update: The owner of the local floor store came to the house, stepped inside, took a 30 second look, and said everything would be ok for the click floor. The next day the contractor's buddy submitted their bid. Surprisingly, it was a few hundred dollars LESS than the local bid, even though it included putting down a luan underlayment and gluing the planks.

I had business in the buddy's store area a few days later and stopped in. They showed me the floor they'd quoted. It's Tarkett/Nafco Permastone Plank. I took samples home. We liked the Flamed Oak. We moved that weekend and left the samples down. They were walked on and had stuff drug over them and came through without any scratches. We placed our order and installation should be some time next week (pending other work). I'll let you know how it works out.

Thanks!

Here is a link that might be useful: Tarkett LVP

"FLAT is what you want..."level" is unimportant for flooring."

I wouldn"t call level unimportant, especially if there is cabinetry with feet or legs that need to rest on the floor. Otherwise they will be floating above the floor.

If the house tilts to one side or a room is way out of level, it matters little to the flooring. Many homes that are out of level, or rooms for that matter, cannot be made level. Cabinetry is either scribed to fit or a trim piece is added where necessary to fill any unsightly gap. Many older homes are not level and, hard as this is to believe, so are some newly-constructed ones.

Glennsfc is right. I meant to say Flat not level. And level is not that important in relation to flooring.

If you float a floor you wouldnt be installing cabinets on it anyways.

I just recently did a bathroom remodel in an " old " 1914 Florida cracker that quickly went from cosmetics to a complete replumb ( pex ) and a complete structural rebuild of my house. Upon opening the wall and pulling out the shower I found that the flippers that sold us the house had no idea what the hell they were doing and had not only left a serious leak in the wall where they had jury rigged a splice between the original iron pipe and the copper they added to connect the shower they put in but they had cut a ton of structural studs as well. Ripping that out then ripping up the sub floor led to me finding they had cut out sections of floor joist as well and just nailed 2x4's ( not even pt ) across the damaged or cut out joists. As long as I had all the subfloor ripped out I crawled under the house into a nightmare of issues, piss poor floor joist support, damaged floor joists, damaged subfloor, crap ton of old corroded brittle rusted iron pipe. So I pulled out the credit card and went to work. replumbed the entire house with pex. Repaired all the floor joists PROPERLY to code, added metal strapping to all my structure ( above code ), added 10 new floor joist jacks with footers. Was horrified when I was laying on my back in the dirt and looked up and realized half my house had original paper wrapped wiring where the paper had long ago crumbled away... enter crash course on electrical, complete rewire with proper gauge wiring for each breaker. Crawling out from under my house I found my " old settling " was completely gone. Having repaired all the floor joist, jacked everything up level, and placed new support jacks, had miraculously transitioned through the entire house up to and even removing the " old " sag in the middle of my roof that I have had for the entire 15 years we have lived here. Of course now to be safe I need to get a crew to come out and put a new roof on.. the joys of home ownership.