Q: One visitor asked, "I am in a condo and want to put in a hardwood engineered floor. There is some concern about noise sound insulation. What is the best product to use? How should it be installed?"

A: Fortunately, hardwood manufacturers have kept pace with demand to provide appropriate products for installation in condominiums, with their concrete "sub floors". There are a number of products to choose from, besides solid wood parquet, which is glued down. There are also laminated products, built like plywood, with a few layers of wood running in different directions, then with a solid wood (say oak, but could be other species). Some are meant to be glued down, while others "float", which means the tongue and groove is glued together on each panel, to hold the floor together, but otherwise is just sitting on the concrete floor. There is a foam pad which is to be used under these floors. (Some versions of this floor do not require gluing the tongue and groove together, but have special joints that click lock each panel to the next and can be disassembled. The absolute best product I have ever worked with comes from a company in Quebec called Boa-Franc, producing their mirage line. I believe this product comes in 2 widths and several species and colours. 3.5 or 2.5 inches by 3/8 thick. This is an engineered product, but offers a solid wood surface that is practically as thick as the wear surface on 3/4 inch plank. It is glued down on concrete. In the case of sound transmission, most condominiums, that I am aware of require cork sheeting to be installed first. If you were to go with the mirage engineered floor, you would have to use a mastic adhesive such as Franklin mastic 711 which is about $150 per pail, covering about 200 sq. ft. for both the cork and the top flooring. If you went with a floating floor, and the condo required cork, the cork could be installed with a quick dry parquet adhesive. It should be rolled with a weighted roller to make sure of good grab between the cork/floor and the adhesive.