finishing SPC flooring at two doorways with raised floors of 5/8" and 3/4"

[weirleader]

We've removed carpeting from the room in question, but this revealed that two adjacent rooms had higher subfloors. One doorway (laundry) has a raised subfloor + vinyl for a total height gain of 5/8"; the other doorway (bathroom) has a raised subfloor + ceramic tile for a total height gain of 3/4". The manufacturer's "reducer" is designed to overlap the 1/4" SPC I'm installing and bring it *down*. It's not really intended to gain height, and even if I tried it in that capacity, it really only gains me about 3/8" max.

Since my SPC is 1/4", if I were to try to somehow place the "reducer" on top, reversed, it would sort of butt up against the vinyl (almost even). This doesn't seem great, but is my only idea. It seems the point of the transition is to overlap on both sides, but if it's high enough to overlap the vinyl then it would sit about 1/8" too high to rest on the SPC I'm installing.



Likewise, with the tile, only the gap is 1/8" greater, so an even bigger problem.

Is there a better solution?

 

[Mark Brown]

The best solution is to get a piece of wood and make a reducer, but that is my best solution. Another plan would be to install it reversed and make a riser piece out of the face of the plank you are installing, rather like an open box. Depending on how much of it shows, this can be done on one or 3 sides. Regardless of how many sides it is done on, I would recommend making the whole thing "solid" with fill pieces of some sort or another.

The major draw back to finished floor coverings that emulate wood, or any floor covering for that matter is that finishes off the shelf are not designed for all real world applications and more often than not become rather useless when you throw life at them. Much like life however, there is typically a work around.