Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
sjca

Marmoleum Underlayment

sjerin
11 years ago

What do you put under Marmoleum, as a subfloor? A flooring guy tried to tell me that particle board is it and who cares about voc's? Yes, he lost my business. I'd love to hear what others used for a subfloor.

TIA

Comments (16)

  • senator13
    11 years ago

    We used exterior grade plywood. I believe luaun is what is often used, but not mdf.

  • senator13
    11 years ago

    We used exterior grade plywood. I believe luaun is what is often used, but not mdf.

  • sjerin
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Thank you, senator. What is luaun?

  • iroll_gw
    11 years ago

    We have plywood--not sure if it's exterior grade or not.

  • angie_diy
    11 years ago

    Luaun is a thin mahogany plywood, usually about 5 mm thick, often used for underlayment. You can get it at the box stores.

  • sjerin
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I see. Well at least there are only two choices to this decisions! Thanks.

  • deedles
    11 years ago

    We just had some installed today over 3/4" plywood. The guy sanded down the bumps and then applied thinset stuff all over it to smooth it. Looks to be pretty good, smooth-wise.
    Can't say I'm in love with the welding rod seam, btw.

  • sjerin
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Hey, Deedles, is there a reason he used such a thick piece of plywood? Do we have a choice between welding rod seam and just a butted seam? Thanks for chiming in! Can you remind me which color(s) you have?

  • karen_belle
    11 years ago

    I cannot for the life of me remember what was put down, but our marmoleum sheet product was laid on top of a layer of cork. It's possible, in fact perhaps most likely, that our concrete slab foundation + water barrier + thinset is what's under the cork.

  • deedles
    11 years ago

    The color is coffee. I find the welding rod to be really ugly and I'm not happy with it at all but we're stuck with it now. Hopefully the bed will cover it. I'd avoid it if I were to do it over, including buying the square tiles in the same color.

    The 3/4" is our subfloor... it's a new floor entirely so our subfloor was 3/4" and they said that was fine, no additional underlayment necessary. Maybe to go over something you'd need some luan or something just to make it smooth.

    Be aware of the welding rod seams, though. Big disappointment and I cannot believe for the price of this stuff that they haven't come up with a more elegant solution to seams. Blech.

  • davidro1
    11 years ago

    sjerin, I would go look on the marmoleum manufacturer's web site. I would read all that. Then, I would post to ask information about details.

  • sjerin
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Yes, I have scoured their website but was asking what others have used. I think the lousy flooring contractors (guy I talked to,) use whatever they want to use. I think exterior plywood will be good.

    Good to know about the welding seam--better to use a butted seam, I guess. Now to decide which color to use out of the zillions offered!!

  • Fori
    11 years ago

    It needs to be really smooth. But I don't remember what was done to my 60 year old subfloor to make it smooth.

    I had a bad job done on my welding rod (I was promised it would be invisible--wasn't, but they did such a bad job on it they had to redo it anyway). Went with the butted seam and it was fine.

  • BreadPuddn
    11 years ago

    A little late to the party here - but I'm looking at the same thing for my kitchen, and when I saw that my flooring contractor had noted an underlayment of particle board in his quote, I decided to do some research. Forbo/Marmoleum writes on their (commercial) installation specs:

    "Years of experience have identified a number of wood substrates that may cause problems when resilient flooring products are installed over them. Installation of Forbo flooring products is NOT recommended over particle board/chip board, tempered hardboard, luan plywood, fire retardant plywood, or pressure treated plywood."

    Sjerin, while your floor is probably in by now, I thought I'd include the above for others who may come across this thread as I did.

  • bookmom41
    11 years ago

    My sheet Marmo was installed two weeks ago. I know after the old vinyl floor and luan was taken up, plywood was laid on top of the subfloor. Installation was delayed by a day because originally, the flooring store supplied the wrong kind of plywood (had some kind of weird core) and they had to get the correct plywood. Sorry, don't know what the "right" kind was either. Our floor was glued down and has a butt seam, and we and the contractors had to stay off of it for 72 hours. Our remodel isn't completed so for now, it is still covered with paper. The installer, a young pup who said he'd been to several Marmoleum-laying classes, said standard luan was not suitable for this product.