diff --git a/base/sparse/cholmod.jl b/base/sparse/cholmod.jl
index 4fffad126b291..b561dbdfed6c3 100644
--- a/base/sparse/cholmod.jl
+++ b/base/sparse/cholmod.jl
@@ -808,13 +808,15 @@ get_perm(FC::FactorComponent) = get_perm(Factor(FC))
 #########################
 
 # Convertion/construction
-function convert{T<:VTypes}(::Type{Dense}, A::VecOrMat{T})
+function convert(::Type{Dense}, A::VecOrMat)
+    T = promote_type(eltype(A), Float64)
     d = allocate_dense(size(A, 1), size(A, 2), stride(A, 2), T)
     s = unsafe_load(d.p)
-    unsafe_copy!(s.x, pointer(A), length(A))
+    for i in eachindex(A)
+        unsafe_store!(s.x, A[i], i)
+    end
     d
 end
-convert(::Type{Dense}, A::VecOrMat) = Dense(float(A))
 convert(::Type{Dense}, A::Sparse) = sparse_to_dense(A)
 
 # This constructior assumes zero based colptr and rowval
diff --git a/test/sparsedir/cholmod.jl b/test/sparsedir/cholmod.jl
index 97a5802d98980..706c655ece629 100644
--- a/test/sparsedir/cholmod.jl
+++ b/test/sparsedir/cholmod.jl
@@ -621,3 +621,7 @@ Fnew = deserialize(b)
 @test_throws ArgumentError diag(Fnew)
 @test_throws ArgumentError logdet(Fnew)
 
+# Issue with promotion during conversion to CHOLMOD.Dense
+@test SparseMatrix.CHOLMOD.Dense(ones(Float32, 5)) == ones(5, 1)
+@test SparseMatrix.CHOLMOD.Dense(ones(Int, 5)) == ones(5, 1)
+@test SparseMatrix.CHOLMOD.Dense(ones(Complex{Float32}, 5, 2)) == ones(5, 2)