ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - 44
COLUMN BUILDING SCIENCES
Joseph W. Lstiburek
FIGURE 1 Back in the Day. A continuous layer of bitumen was installed over the top
of the concrete surface. The bitumen would be both a vapor barrier and a capillary break. To keep it from getting over everything it was covered with felt paper.
Sometimes it was installed in two layers.
PHOTO 1 Plywood Over Bitumen. Plywood replaced wood sleepers and was covered
with a slip surface to keep the wood flooring from squeaking as it changed moisture content seasonally.
Wood Flooring
Felt Slip Sheet
Plywood
Two-Ply Felt
Set in Mastic
Granular Base
Walking the Plank
BY JOSEPH W. LSTIBUREK, PH.D., P.ENG., FELLOW ASHRAE
Personally, I think the most beautiful floors in the world are wood. I like the look. I like
the feel. Even Greenies like wood floors because, apparently, wood grows on trees.*
Wood floors have been around forever. You would think folks would know how to
install them. Ha. We used to know. Then we forgot. Then it got weird. Wood changed
into "waswood."† And then we began to install both wood and waswood on surfaces
that were not easy to install stuff on. Like concrete. We sure like our concrete, and we
sure like our wood and waswood. It was inevitable that wood flooring would find a
home on concrete slabs.
What is it with wood flooring on concrete? Two of the
most fabulous building materials in the history of building materials should get along. Nope. Concrete loves
water. It would love to stay wet forever. The longer it
stays wet, the stronger it becomes. Wood hates water.
Water makes wood do weird things like move and rot. To
make wood and concrete get along we either have to separate the wood from the concrete or we have to make the
concrete dry enough not to irritate the wood too much.
And if we take the concrete dry enough route it has to
stay that way forever.
Back in the day old guys knew how to separate the wood
from the concrete and make glorious wood floors. When
we had concrete slabs on grade or basement concrete
floors, old guys learned to install a continuous layer of
bitumen over the top of the concrete surface (Figure 1 and
*OK, not all Greenies. To some Greenies not all wood is good wood. Not all wood is green wood, and I don't mean green in the old-term sense when green wood meant something real and definable. Just
for the record I am not in favor of chopping down 1,000-year-old trees to make parquet flooring. For some folks nothing is ever good enough except for all folks to disappear from the planet because we
humans are the problem and the planet would be better off without humans.
†"Waswood" is a term used to describe stuff that used to be wood but is not wood anymore. This is another name for "engineered wood"-a term that is insulting to both engineers and wood.
44
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ASHRAE Journal - November 2014
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ASHRAE Journal - November 2014
Contents
ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - Cover1
ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - Cover2
ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - 1
ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - 2
ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - Contents
ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - 4
ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - 5
ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - 6
ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - 7
ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - 8
ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - 9
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ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - 14
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ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - 18
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ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - 20
ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - 21
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ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - 38
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ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - Cover3
ASHRAE Journal - November 2014 - Cover4
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