Question 1

Which flooring material is best for my home?

Accepted Answer

Start with the room, not the look. At an entrance, use something waterproof — a resilient plank rated for wet areas, or tile. Ottawa entrances take salt, grit and melting snow for five months of the year, and that is what destroys a floor first: water sitting at the door, not traffic. Give it a waterproof surface and a mat that catches grit before it reaches the rest of the house. Elsewhere: solid hardwood can be refinished several times and moves with humidity, so it wants a stable, dry room. Engineered wood is more stable and the better choice over concrete or radiant heat. Resilient plank handles moisture and is the usual answer for basements. Laminate looks like wood and does not forgive standing water. Carpet is for comfort and sound, not for wet rooms. Tile belongs in wet areas and is planned with TileOttawa.

Question 2

What flooring works best in a basement?

Accepted Answer

Basements get resilient plank in almost every case. A basement slab passes moisture upward all year, so the floor has to tolerate it: waterproof-core resilient plank or tile, laid over the slab with the underlay the product calls for. Engineered wood works if the slab tests dry and the manufacturer approves below grade. Solid hardwood does not belong on a basement slab — it will cup. Carpet in a basement is a judgement call: comfortable, and the first thing ruined by any water event. If the basement has ever taken water, do not put carpet back. Before choosing anything, test the slab for moisture — see the plastic-sheet test below.

Question 3

How do I measure a room for flooring?

Accepted Answer

Measure every room, closet, alcove, doorway and connected run separately. Record the longest length and width, then sketch irregular areas as smaller rectangles or triangles. Measurements create a planning quantity; installers should verify dimensions, layout and site conditions before material is ordered.

Question 4

How much extra flooring should I order?

Accepted Answer

Waste covers end cuts, defects, colour selection and layout. Simple rectangular plank rooms generally need less waste than diagonal, herringbone, narrow hallway, multi-closet or heavily patterned installations. Use the product and installer recommendation rather than a universal percentage, and keep attic stock for future repairs.

Question 5

How do I find out what my subfloor is?

Accepted Answer

Lift a floor vent and look down the opening. That one cut already exists, it shows you the full floor build-up in section, and it costs nothing. What you are looking for is how many layers there are. Ottawa houses very often have two: the structural subfloor on the joists, and a second layer — old plywood, particleboard, or an underlayment someone added under a previous floor. If there is a second layer, taking it off is usually easier than trying to flatten it, and it gets you back to a clean, level substrate in one pass. It also buys back the height you need to keep your transitions and door clearances. Note what the structural layer is — plywood, OSB or concrete — because the new floor's fastening and underlay requirements depend on it.

Question 6

Does a subfloor need to be perfectly level?

Accepted Answer

Flat matters, level does not. A floor can slope and still take a new covering; what it cannot do is dip and hump. The common requirement is 3 mm over 3 m for floating floors, and 5 mm over 3 m for glue-down — check the box, but those are the numbers you will meet most often. Lay a 2 m straightedge across the floor in several directions and look for daylight under it. Fix a low spot with a cementitious patch or self-levelling compound; grind or sand a high spot. On a wood subfloor, a hump is often a seam or a fastener standing proud, and a bad dip usually means the second subfloor layer should come off — see the floor-vent check above. Skipping this is the single most common cause of a floating floor that clicks, gaps or separates a year later.

Question 7

How do I know whether a concrete basement floor is dry enough?

Accepted Answer

Do the plastic test first. Tape a 600 mm square of clear poly to the slab on all four edges, sealed right round, and leave it 24 to 72 hours. Lift it and look: condensation on the underside of the plastic, or a dark damp patch on the concrete, means the slab is passing moisture and is not ready. A dry sheet and dry concrete means you can proceed to the manufacturer's required test. It is a screening test, not a number. It tells you whether to stop, and it takes ten minutes and two dollars of plastic. If it comes back wet, you have your answer before you have bought flooring. If it comes back dry, most resilient-floor manufacturers still require a documented slab moisture test — relative humidity probes or calcium chloride — and sometimes a pH reading, to the limits stated for that product and adhesive. That documented test is what protects the warranty.

Question 8

How long should flooring acclimate in Ottawa?

Accepted Answer

Typical practice, and then check the box the product came in. Solid hardwood: 5 to 7 days in the room where it will be installed, boxes opened, stacked with air around them. Engineered wood: 48 to 72 hours. Laminate: 48 hours. Resilient plank and tile: 48 hours, and most matter more about temperature than humidity — usually 18 to 29°C. The condition that matters more than the hours: the house must be closed in, heated or cooled, and running near what it will be when people live there. Acclimating material in an unheated house in February achieves nothing. Ottawa swings from roughly 20% indoor relative humidity in January to 60% in July. Wood floors move with that. Keep the house between 35% and 55% year-round if you want a wood floor to stay flat — that is a humidifier in winter and air conditioning or a dehumidifier in summer.

Choose the floor that fits the whole room.

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Understand the room

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Floor health

Acclimation

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Value over time

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Your floor experiences the whole year indoors.

Seasonal questions to record

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