leveling a 3/16" floor height difference

[realdeal64]

I am putting down some Armstrong laminate flooring and have ran into a problem. After pulling up the carpet I see that the door way area ( about 6'x6' ) in my house where a small section of lenolium is present right at the doorway, is installed on top of regular plywood whereas as the rest of the floor is OSB where the carpet was. Since I don't want to use a reducer strip to cover this 3/16" height difference whats the best way to fix this?

I only know of the following options:

Self-leveling cement based underlayment ( will this work for this large of an area to fill in or just for small low spots? )

Put thin regular plywood over all existing OSB then raise the small section to match the height of the rest if needed.

Take out the small section thats too high and replace with something that matches closer

Use shingles around by the height differences to gradually make the slope?


More details:

Manufacturer says make sure the floor doesn't change height more than 1/4" per 10ft.

Additional question:

Instructions say to leave expansion gap whenever you have a run of 26ft or more of the width. I have a run of 29ft, but under my house is very dry ( l live on top of a sandy hill ) so I don't expect high moister from that. I understand this could/will void my warranty but I don't really care as long as going over by 3ft will be ok. I live in Columbia, SC. I have an alternative to keep the flooring within manufactures spec if I lay the flooring perpendicular to incoming light sources instead of parallel. I do not want to do this because I read many places this does not look at good. Can you guys confirm this? Is the glare more when you go perpendicular?

I am using a decent quality underlaypment called quietstep or something like that. It costs $300 for 500sq. ft.

Here is a link for the detailed flooring specs that I'm using.

iFLOOR.com - Santos Mahogany - Nature's Gallery Exotics - Armstrong - Laminate Flooring

This is my first post! Thanks guys, I have already read many other posts to get help. I look forward to your response.

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[Floorguy]

Remove the plywood underlayment.

[mpeterson72]

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IF you arent concerned about the warranty, then I wouldnt worry about the 29' run.

Regarding the plywood, it is best to remove that section and level out with the rest of the floor. Putting an entire new subfloor is expensive and not needed.

The glare depends on the gloss level of the floor that you are putting in. I have seen hundreds, if not thousands of floors laid both ways and it comes down to preference.