Hey, I always like to help a buddy do it right...

NICE!!!

That's only part of the problem. Overrun has been $100 million. But it's obscene that the thing was slated to cost $650 million in the first place.

Sometimes I think that the Chinese have the right idea of how to deal with serious corruption...

Firing squad? :D

yes...or so they tell us.;)

I hope I don't get the firing squad for not putting down moisture barrier. I have a different theory about it. I'm putting down the laminate in a basement. There are lots of water pipes i nthe ceiling so there's a good probably I'll get a leak in the laminate. If there's plastic sheeting underneath the laminate, it will hold the water between it and the laminate. If there's no plastic sheeting, the water has a chance to flow down thru any cracks in the old concrete. I did this in another part of the same basement. I've had a couple of huge water leaks onto the laminate in that section and it survived just fine and there's no evidence that he lack of a moisture barrier is causing any other problems. I did experiment with this laminate, leaving it soaking in a bucket of water for a week or so and then drying it out to see how it does. Negligible ill effects. I even used a piece of it as a cutting board for about six months and you could only detect any scratches if you held it up to a light just right.

Kerry, if it's your house, do what you like. Just don't ask the good taxpayers of NYC to pay for fixing it. Deal?

It won't work with real wood. (no vapor barrier).

What the heck are you talking about?

I was suggesting the firing squad for gross corruption.

Kerry said he hoped he didn't get said penalty for not putting down vapor barrier and messing up his own floor. I said, it's his own house, so it's not gross corruption until he asks the good people of New York to pay for his foibles.

Oh....that's not what you said, but now I do get it.;)

If you have headroom to spare there are insulation products on the market that will work over concrete floors. Even an r value of 2-3 would probably make a differance this far north.

It has got to the point that some form of waterproof bubble type insulation at the least should go under basement floors here on new construction.

I've got real wood on the floor in part of my basement and the house was built in 1890 so no vapor barrier under it. Still holding up. I'm surprised but it is a desert here.

Has to be very dry soil I would think. Normally wood in contact with concrete rots. A few specis of wood are pretty rot resistant though.

How is it applied? Is it on sleepers?

I glued down wood once on a concrete porch. The owner did not use AC in the summer so when the humidity came in it expanded about 2" over an 8 or 9 foot length and buckled immensely. You're in Colorado so perhaps its pretty dry there? The basement also being next to the earth probably is pretty constant temp? Its the expansion with humidity that did us in....temperature flux too probably.