Replacing flooring on a rental

[Peter Morgan]

Hi

I am considering rehabbing and renting my apartment,it has wooden flooring what seems to me like something of spurious quality it's about 1100sq ft,there is also damaged floor due to water in the past in one of the rooms

I am considering replacing the floor with luxury vinyl tile and currently researching on best possible options.Before I install lvt I would like to know if it makes sense to rip off the existing floor and install lvt on top of the subfloor?or directly install on top off the existing floor? With the later approach I am not sure if it makes sense to install on top of the damaged floor in one of the rooms, appreciate inputs from members of this forum

Thanks

[Kelly N.]

@Peter Morgan I'd see what the manufacturer recommends about ripping up the existing floor- in most cases you should be able to put the new flooring over the old.  You may need to sand down the area that is buckling, or remove it and level it with plywood or leveling compound or whatever you need to do to get it to match the rest of the floor.  The LVT manufacturer should have some spec on how much the floor can vary.

It'd be great if the floor was salvageable, but I have yet to find one in one of our rentals, so we have just installed overtop the old floor.  If I were living there, I might invest the time into the hardwood floors, but for a rental we can't justify it when they are as bad as we've seen (water damage, large gaps between planks, portions of the wood replaced with plywood, you get the idea.)