There are many types of wood floor underlayment available, and they each have differing properties that affect the proper use of the product. The most common types of underlayment include plywood or oriented strand board (OSB), felt paper, standard foam, foam and film combination, floor muffling foam and modified or upgraded foam.
Oriented Strand Board (OSB)
OSB is an inexpensive wood flooring underlayment. It is an engineered wood product made from small-diameter, fast-growing trees that are a renewable resource making OSB a low-cost product for use as subflooring or a wood floor underlayment. Wood flooring can be glued or nailed directly to OSB once the surface has been properly prepped.
Plywood
Plywood is an engineered wood product made from cross-laminated wood veneers pressed together under high heat to produce a sheet of plywood. An alternative to OSB, application of wood flooring products are nailed or glued directly to the plywood or in combination with other varieties of wood floor underlayment.
Advantech
Advantech is an engineered wood with many of the same characteristics and qualities attributable to OSB and plywood, yet it does offer several advantages over them. With a tongue and grove design and waterproof coating that prevents swelling of the wood, Advantech is a highly durable alternative to a traditional plywood or OSB underlayment. Wood flooring is glued or nailed directly to Advantech or applied after in conjunction with other wood flooring underlayment materials.
Concrete
A concrete slab underlayment, depending on the location of the concrete slab, is suitable for direct adherence of wood flooring using a wood flooring glue. As with the previous wood floor underlayment, concrete also serves as a viable subfloor for other types of wood flooring underlayment.
Felt Paper
Felt paper is a paper product also known as tar paper. Available commonly in rolls of 15- or 30-weight felt, the product is used as a wood floor underlayment laid in overlapping fashion on wood subfloors. The main purpose of the felt paper is to prevent any moisture from coming into contact with the wood flooring while also providing minimal ability to correct slight floor imperfections. Felt products are typically used whenever a wood floor is going to be nailed into the wood substrate.
Standard Foam Underlayment
According to the Hardwood Installer website, standard foam underlayment is often a synthetic product made of polyethylene foam. The foam goes a step further than felt paper by creating a padding between the flooring substrate and the wood floor. Standard foam underlayment is a thin 1/8-inch foam padding that features noise-dampening qualities and minimal ability to correct slight defects in the subfloor. Foam underlayment is used with floating flooring products, which are engineered wood floors that "float" over the underlayment and substrate because no nails and very little glue is used during flooring installation.
Underlayment With a Foam and Film Combination
According to Fastfloors.com, this underlayment is a standard foam with the addition of a layer of film as a moisture barrier on one side. The moisture barrier prevents moisture from contacting the wood floor from underneath and potentially causing major damage. Several variations such as Floor Muffler foam and modified or upgrade foam are available. Each has a combination of foam and film with increasing thickness and sound-dampening qualities.
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