LESLIE: Now we’ve got Mac on the line from Hawaii who’s got a question about flooring. Aloha.
MAC: I’m a lazy man, Leslie. I’m from (inaudible at 0:30:42) vinyl tile I’m taking off, those 12×12 squares?
LESLIE: Yes.
TOM: Yep.
MAC: I don’t want to buy the glue cleaner and oh, man, can I just rough it up somehow and put those – I went to a local hardware store and they have those nice, vinyl peel-and-stick but only the front edge has that stick-on sticky part.
TOM: Right.
MAC: I thought they would work fine.
TOM: Well, let me ask you a question: why are you peeling up the old floor? Because you could probably go right on top of that.
MAC: Well, I just want to redo it this way, from scratch. I don’t want to add on any other layers.
TOM: Yeah, I understand that, Mac, but the best thing to do – if you don’t want to deal with the demolition part of this. Because once you peel off the old layers, you’re going to get a very uneven surface and it’s going to be a lot more work for you to try to clean that up. And peel-and-stick is not going to stick to an uneven surface like that. And even, frankly, if you add glue to it – a tile adhesive – it may be kind of bumpy. So if your existing floor is intact – in other words, the tiles are not loose and falling off the floor – I would put the new floor on top of that.
Now, the other thing that you could do is to think about not vinyl but engineered hardwood or laminate floor. In both cases, they can be assembled right on top of the old floor, as well. And again, you don’t have to take it up.
MAC: I see. OK. Thank you very much. I appreciate the help.
TOM: You’re welcome, Mac. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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