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We live in northern New Jersey (read: can get really humid).

We have wall-to- wall carpet in our bedroom. The humidity caused it to rise like a can of surströmming (rotten herring). I have three questions:

1) would you recommend wall-to-wall carpet again?

2) which hardwood (or maybe engineered wood) is better against humidity? Or is it more a matter of how the wood is installed, floating vs. glued, or perhaps a combo of the two?

3) can creaky floors be avoided? The realtor said it is because of humidity? True?

Additional info: The bedroom currently has a wood subfloor. The rest of the flooring has a plywood subfloor over concrete. I do want to replace the existing floor.

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  • I am considering carpet again because it might be cheaper to replace than putting wood in there. I haven't done a cost comparison yet. If we go carpet, I'll hire a pro. The bedroom is 190 sq. ft. We are planning on putting our co-op on the market ASAP.
    – Rhea
    Commented Aug 15, 2011 at 11:33
  • You might want to look at Teak, it tends to deal with higher humidity better than other hard woods.
    – Tester101
    Commented Aug 15, 2011 at 15:01

2 Answers 2

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Carpet will be cheaper to have installed, but the life time is much shorter than hardwood.

Look into strand bamboo. I believe it is much harder than any other hardwood and not as susceptible to humidity. I used it in my house on the most of the main level (about 1,500 square feet) and have been very happy with it.

Because it so hard, it is more difficult to install, so you may pay a little more for installation.

I don't know if you can ever avoid all creaks, but most can be avoided by putting down rosin paper first and nailing into the floor joists as much as possible.

UPDATE 1

I'm talking specifically about strand bamboo. Regular bamboo is much softer and scratches a lot easier.

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  • Hmm bamboo sounds expensive. This will also be my first time laying down floors and we are going to sell so not sure I want to spend much knowing the market is crummy. I'll still look into it though, thanks for the answer!
    – Rhea
    Commented Aug 15, 2011 at 16:54
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    I think I paid about $3.79/sq. ft. at Lumber Liquidators for mine.
    – aphoria
    Commented Aug 15, 2011 at 18:01
  • We did go for carpet due to cost and knowing we weren't going to live in it. Thanks for the other tips, will keep that in mind for our next investment.
    – Rhea
    Commented Jan 7, 2014 at 0:08
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Definitely use Hardwood, carpet, when in humidity, gets soggy and it really smells after a while, also hardwood looks really elegant, I really recommend bamboo hardwood, I have and it is really appealing, although it is difficult to install

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