Laying a solid wood floor around a granite hearth?

[norahclare]

Hi

My boyf and I are having a solid fuel fire fitted next week with a split granite hearth. We also have a mountain of solid oak wood flooring that needs to be fitted. The boards are beautiful but a very, very dark stain so I guess proved unpopular and were the offer of the century.
Two queries:

1) We are going to remove the skirting borads and then replace them with new ones after the floor is fitted. Can we lay the boards a little under where the granite hearth will sit? (Obviously not over the constructional hearth) What I'd like is to sit the hearth on the boards and not worry about covering the expansion gap but I'm not sure if this is possible.

2) We have solid floor boards from B&Q and their solid floor underlay (with an adhesive membrane). It's essentially going to be a floating floor fitted on a timber subfloor.

The underlay is (according to them0 suitable for this job but I noticed it contains some damp proofing properties. I know this isn't good for timber subfloors and I'm not going to just take B&Qs word that it's ok to use.

Is this likely to cause a probelm with the subfloor? If so, is there any thing I can do to it to reduce it?

I know I could use a different underlay and glue the boards but my budget and time is very tight and this underlay means I don't need any other tools or to actually glue the tongues so I really want to try this.

has anyone used this method before?


Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[WoodYouLike]

Hi Norahclare

If there is sufficient space underneath the heart to still allow for some expansion for the boards there is no problem installing the floor there the way you suggest. Just be careful that the heart doesn't really rest on the boards, this will prevent normal 'movement' of the boards.

If your room isn't wider than 5 meters than using a normal foam underlayment (3mm) and glueing the T&G's properly you solve the problem of the DPM being attached to the adhesive type of underfloor B&Q advices. NEVER use a dpm on existing floorboards or sheetmaterial underfloor.

 

[norahclare]

Thanks for the advice regarding the hearth.

I know I could do it the other way and glue the grooves but i'd really like to use the adhesive underlay that I have. The room is about 3 metres wide but about 7 and a half long and the boards are going to have to be laid in the direction of the longest wall.

Has anyone used this type of underlay or know how I can reduce the chances of problems arising from the damp-proof qualities (without actually using another underlay altogether)?

 

[WoodYouLike]

You're taking the risk of creating condensation underneath the dpm underlayment. In the end this could mean rotting underfloor