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I am putting in a new kitchen in house that is almost fifty years old. The linoleum floor is in very rough shape. The house was built with on layer of floor sheeting. Underlayment was added to all the rooms except the kitchen and bathroom when new carpet was installed. I am planning on installing underlayment on the kitchen floor and then new flooring ( tile, solid or wood veneer, or engineered flooring. Before I add underlayment should I remove the old linoleum or just lay it on top? Anybody have any experience or knowledge about this subject.
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(04-02-2020, 09:32 PM)pebbles Wrote: I am putting in a new kitchen in house that is almost fifty years old. The linoleum floor is in very rough shape. The house was built with on layer of floor sheeting. Underlayment was added to all the rooms except the kitchen and bathroom when new carpet was installed. I am planning on installing underlayment on the kitchen floor and then new flooring ( tile, solid or wood veneer, or engineered flooring. Before I add underlayment should I remove the old linoleum or just lay it on top? Anybody have any experience or knowledge about this subject.
If the linoleum is cracked, curled edges etc. I would remove it. If it is sound but just worn you can go over it. Use staples to attach the underlayment, less chance it crack the linoleum as nails might.
I installed 1/4" underlayment over block tiles about 10/12 years ago , no problems .
mike
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There's a couple reasons I'd remove the vinyl . Surprised there is no underpayment under it. If there were, I'd remove it too. It just gives me more available vertical space to work with.
Cabinets, refrigerators, microwave ovens dishwashers etc are generally built to standardized dimensions but still vary in height up to about 1/2". Also, floors and ceilings aren't always level (rarely level). Any bulkheads built around ceiling duct-work or if the existing upper cabinets are mounted against bulkheads can cause dimensional issues too. Often times the open bulkheads above upper cabinets serve as return air ducts, particularly in two or three story homes. Bulkheads aren't always accurately enough constructed to work perfectly with all the standardized dimensions of appliances and cabinets.
Assuming you have 8ft ceilings, available space gets real tight. So there's a lot to consider. I've done a few kitchens now and I've run into a couple things more than once. There's generally about 3/4" available room for flooring before the refrigerator hits whatever is above it. Installing 3/4" hardwoods can still cause the fridge to hit the cabinet or bulkhead above it. Some newer refrigerators have bulky exterior upper hinges so even if the fridge fits under the cabinet, the cabinet doors still hit the hinges and don't fully open.
Depending on if you mount your lower cabinets on the subfloor or on top of new flooring or shim them off the subfloor or your new flooring up against the cabinet basses... the dimensions all come into play. The same with the distance between your stove-top and your microwave above it (assuming there is one there). Will your dishwasher fit under the countertop if your cabinets are sitting on subfloor? Is the spot where you intend to put the dishwasher or fridge a high spot on the floor? You just want to make sure each decision you make won't screw up other decisions you make.
Even taking everything into consideration, varying ceiling height and varying floor levels easily screw everything up. Flooring over vinyl might just lose that 1/8" you needed to get the fridge under a cabinet or your dishwasher under the countertop.
Tile over a backerboard can also be about 3/4" or more thick.
The last kitchen I did, I thought I had it all worked out. Until I started sliding the refrigerator under the cabinet. About halfway back, the top of the fridge hit the upper cabinet. I had to take down the cabinet and cut about 3/8" off the bottom to get the fridge in. There was a high spot against the wall under the fridge I didn't account for. This was using 3/4" hardwood flooring and 15# felt paper under the flooring.
So, imho... take up all flooring and start from scratch, you might be glad you did.
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A situation we experienced makes for another reason...we installed new cork flooring over an existing linoleum floor. (I took up the flooring/underlayment I installed in the 80's leaving the linoleum that was in the house when we bought it). Apparently a mouse chewed the dishwasher discharge hose causing a leak into the DW insulation, gradually working its way to the floor (actually between the linoleum and new cork). Took several weeks/months to manifest itself, but the floor started to swell about 10 ft from the DW. The discharge effluent was trapped by the linoleum and just laid there. No leaks in the basement at all...When I lifted a piece of the cork, wow what a mess of mold and stench...$60k insurance claim later (no public adjuster needed. it was that bad).
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Wasn't linoleum made with asbestos, back in the day? Removing it may require some extra care. Not sure what you do with it, once removed.
If you are going down a river at 2 mph and your canoe loses a wheel, how much pancake mix would you need to shingle your roof?
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(04-03-2020, 08:01 AM)Bill Wilson Wrote: Wasn't linoleum made with asbestos, back in the day? Removing it may require some extra care. Not sure what you do with it, once removed.
Most of the asbestos flooring was 9" sq composite tiles but some sheet flooring containing asbestos was still made up until 1980.
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(04-03-2020, 08:01 AM)Bill Wilson Wrote: Wasn't linoleum made with asbestos, back in the day? Removing it may require some extra care. Not sure what you do with it, once removed.
Linoleum was made with linseed oil. The stuff we have had since then is vinyl. Totally different animal. Linoleum is far superior to vinyl but it was much more expensive to make. Last I knew there was a factory in Scotland or Ireland still making it. Been a while I just can't remember for sure.
Now the adhesive used for some older floor coverings including vinyl had asbestos in it. The glue was generally black but there was some grey adhesive that had it in it as well. Not a big deal unless you are tearing it up all the time. You won't be around it enough to worry about it. Just do the usual of work it wet when needed to create minimal dust. Course it'll be a year before we can buy masks again which is also why so much construction is shut down as they can't/shouldn't work without them either. There has been a lack of them for a long time now and a monopoly producing only expensive ones.
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Good luck removing the black tar stuff they used back then under the vinyl if it was laid down thick and breaks loose in spots and leaves a rough surface.
If you don't have that, I'd remove the vinyl.
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(04-03-2020, 08:01 AM)Bill Wilson Wrote: Wasn't linoleum made with asbestos, back in the day? Removing it may require some extra care. Not sure what you do with it, once removed.
it was at one time. So I asked about the dangers of asbestos fibers getting into me if I scraped up my linoleum floor. The expert's reply was that you would need to put the flooring in a blender to get the asbestos fibers out. So, removing the linoleum flooring should be safer enough.
Decades ago I did help remove an old linoleum floor and I have survived so far
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(04-10-2020, 03:48 PM)mdickmann Wrote: it was at one time. So I asked about the dangers of asbestos fibers getting into me if I scraped up my linoleum floor. The expert's reply was that you would need to put the flooring in a blender to get the asbestos fibers out. So, removing the linoleum flooring should be safer enough.
Decades ago I did help remove an old linoleum floor and I have survived so far
The fear is overblown like the fear of lead. If you are doing it allot and making a mess making it all friable then yeah I would worry but the normal homeowner or remodel contractor that runs into it every so often it isn't a big deal. The fear was used to drive business for remedial company services much like the Mold scams a while back.
