# What is under my carpet??



## aligail (Apr 17, 2009)

I am a first time home owner and know very little about home improvement stuff. Our house was built in 1930 and is fully carpeted. I am trying to figure out whether its possible that we have hardwood floors under the carpets - but when I pull up the carpets I see what does not appear to be wood at all. It is smooth and hard and grayish-brown. Can anyone tell me what this is? Is there a chance that there are hardwood floors under this?

thanks!


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## Just Bill (Dec 21, 2008)

Look like particle board to me, but the could be hardwood floors under that. Unfortunatly, they would be a mess from installing the particle board. They will either be full of nail holes or be covered with adhesive or both.


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## rusty baker (Feb 13, 2009)

Looks more like masonite to me. Could be anything under it. It is definitely not original.


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## HABSFAN2006 (Feb 25, 2009)

looks like particle board. the only way to know, is to take one out, but this was not usually installed over hard wood planks, the carpet would of often been installed directly on the hardwood planks. If you do decie to go the 3/4" hard wood way installing new floors, i would not advise installing it directly on the particle board. Floating engineered hard wood would be acceptable to lay over provided it's flat enough.


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## rusty baker (Feb 13, 2009)

After putting my glasses on, you are right it is particle board. A house built in 1930 would not have had particle board on the floor when it was built. Usually, some one has put it over the original floor to cover roughness or a defect. It could have hard wood underneath, but who knows. I have seen it installed in many old houses to cover up termite damage.


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## Floorwizard (Dec 5, 2003)

Some kind of fiber board....


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## aligail (Apr 17, 2009)

Thank you so much for the responses! So for a 1930 house, what else could have been the original subfloor other than hardwoods? Is it possible that they put plywood down back then? Are there any other options? If there are no hardwood floors - is it more likely that the house never had them, or that they were removed at some point along the line? One odd thing about our house is that it was moved to its current location in 1970.. Would that affect the floors at all? 

So if it is particle board, is it even worth trying to figure out whether there is hardwood underneath? How do i even get it off? If it was nailed to hardwood floors - Im guessing there is no way to fix multiple nail holes in hardwood? Is it possible there could be a layer inbetween the particle board and the potential hardwood floors? 

thanks again for all the advice!


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