Hello,
I want to replace my carpet floors with hardwood. Under the carpet is particle board over plywood. I have seen many references saying that you should NOT nail or staple hardwood flooring onto particle board. As an alternative to replacing the particle board with plywood, I have chosen to look at a floating hardwood floor solution. I wanted to install something that had the same look, thickness, and feel as ¾” hardwood. While searching for such options, I found the Bruce Westchester line of ¾” Engineered hardwood floors http://www.bruce.com/resflram/na/bruce/en/us/collection.asp?lineId=6029.0 which supports “glue or staple or floating” installation methods.

To my surprise, the possible installer (from the store, a major regional retailer, I would buy the wood) recommends to staple it onto the particle board/plywood and NOT float it. This is because this line of engineered flooring is tongue and groove requiring glue to hold the planks together, and not click and lock like you see on most engineered and laminate floors, and he feels that glue will not keep the joints tight-fitting because of thickness and mass of these planks. I pointed out to him that the actual Bruce installation manual recommends not to nail or staple into particle board and does recommend floating.

So, my first question is – Should I listen to this installer ignoring Bruce installation instructions and most of the negative feedback on nailing/stapling hardwood on particle board, or find another installer?
My second question – Does anyone have any experience (especially floating it) with this new line of Bruce ¾” Engineered flooring?
My third question – can you recommend other ¾” thick engineered or solid floating floors? (ie Floor & Décor have a proprietary clipping system that allows you to float their ¾” solid hardwood)

Thanks for your time…