we live in a rented apartment, we have carpet installed but we would prefer hard wood so much better. is there a way, inexpensive much preferred, to have hard wood over the carpet without damaging the carpet? hope to hear some interesting suggestions, thanks!!
Easy, simply build a new floor on top of the carpet but which does not apply pressure on the carpet. Imagine a thin sheet of plywood. Now, what you do is drive a bunch of nails through so they stick out about 1 on the other side. Space the nails an inch apart so the entire sheet of plywood will sit in top of the nails all of which are no further than an inch from an adjacent neighboring nail, as they go through the carpet to the hard subfloor. All you do is poke small holes in the carpet and padding. The same thing happens when a person lies on a bed of nails. The closely spaced, many nails spread the weight over a much larger area transferring the weight through the carpet rather than ON the carpet to the solid wood subfloor. Now, the problem is, how do you keep your weight from simply pushing the plywood down around the nails? Easy again, lay on another sheet of plywood and glue it together. The top sheet (with your hardwood veneer) will sit on top of the nail heads. Use wood screws to clamp the sheets together and you have a durable top floor surface which will sit on pinpoints that go through the carpet harmlessly. Build enough to cover the carpet. You will add 2 or so the the height of the flooring. You will STILL have a problem, avoiding damage to the carpet by water or anything else spilled which will work through the cracks between sheets and end up in the rug and pad. Somehow, you will have to seal the top sheets to each other and to the walls to keep anything and everything from getting to the carpet. And then, you would have to work around the edge where the 2 lip would be at the carpet edge. A lot of factories do this same kind of elevated flooring to hide electrical cables and piping in places like rooms of electronics. The difference is they simply build channels for things since they have no carpet to protect, and they do not care if dirt gets into the channels where the wires and pipes are located. It is going to be VERY expensive!
You can't put hardwood over carpet. The softness of the carpet would let the hard floor flex and would eventually come apart, break or crack.
The tile floor would be ruined, and the value of the house lessened, but it can be done. A better idea, if the tile is nice is to buy large area rugs which have no slip padding on the back. It will be easier to keep the room clean also, around the walls, etc. Wall to wall carpeting really picks up a lot of awful stuff, look how much dirt you sweep up each day? A tile floor is healthier than wall to wall. Get some better shoes for indoors, although I have marble and tile and love the feel on my feet, which no longer hurt as they used to.? Don't know what that means for you, though, Good Luck
