You can definitely install concrete floors on a wooden subfloor or wooden substrate. Concrete floors (or overlays) are of similar thickness and weight to tile, so you should be fine structurally to install concrete on any surface (provided your subfloor is adequately prepared and you use an experienced concrete artisan who uses top quality products).
There have been lots of recent product developments that challenge traditional thinking of what 'concrete' is. With traditional concrete, you would definitely need to reinforce and check the structure before any application or overlay is applied. If the concrete contractors use the latest high performance products, the concrete floor or overlay could actually be lighter than tile and usually only 3/8" thick.
Depending on the flex in your wooden subfloor, hairline cracks are natural and expected to appear on the surface. This comes from the concrete slab being a single, solid piece of rock and the wood underneath is flexible and changes and shifts consistently. When the foundation of the house shifts, the concrete is subjected to various flex points and pressures which take the form of tiny hairline fractures in the material. Seams, contraction joints and schluter strip help curb this, but if doing concrete on any flexible surface you can expect movement.
If you need a concrete top coat it generally runs between $12-$18 per sq/ft (plus floor prep on wooden subfloor - usually $1/sq ft), prices are depending on the products used, sealers, waxes and acid stains you want applied. You can maybe find cheaper contractors in your area, just make sure they have plenty of experience and are using the best products, for guaranteed long-term results.
If installed correctly, these concrete floors have more longevity and style options than other flooring options. Good luck!
Hi MODE CONCRETE, I was wondering if you could advise on the following: we are having to re-do the whole of our ground floor because we need to replace the kitchen underfloor heating pipes. We currently have tiles that connect kitchen, hall and dining room so that means we will have to replace it all as we can not match the kitchen again with the hall. We want to put concrete instead of tiles. Problem is that kitchen will have new pipes and will require new screed which suggest we could use straight forward concrete and then polish it on top, but then, for the hall and the dining room we are not touching the UFH and the screed is already there, so pouring concrete on top would make it too thick, would it not? What would you suggest as best solution to deal with this? You can not have a part of the floor as overlay and another as full on concrete, can you? Overlay everywhere? But then would we first need to put screed on the kitchen, wait for it to dry and then put the overlay there? It is starting to seem like I am in a nightmare.... I was not expecting to have to change the floor in the first place...
MODE CONCRETE
tileboyz84
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