Parquet tips

[Great-Uncle-Bulgaria]

Hi there all.

I've recently moved from the UK to an apartment in Bulgaria. I currently have concrete floors that are screeded level. The concrete was laid 5 months ago, so it should be well cured. I have enough new hardwood tongue & groove blocks to lay in 3 rooms. I did intend to use adhesive, but one of my neighbours mentioned that his parquet was laid direct onto some sort of underlay foam (similar to that used with laminate flooring) with the blocks glued together with PVA wood glue?!?! What could the pitfalls of this method be? Is this even a valid way to lay parquet? If not, I will continue go down the adhesive route. Can anyone advise me how thick the adhesive should be laid? The reason I ask is that I have a couple of tiled areas to butt-up to, but the parquet blocks are already about 2mm above these sections. I think that anything more than about 2mm of adhesive in these areas is going to cause problems.

Thanks for any advise you can offer. I am at a bit of a loss out here due to my lack of Bulgarian language skills.

 

[WoodYouLike]

Your underlayment will also be more than 2mm I'm afraid. And I think the glue underlyament mentioned is Elastilon which is 3 - 4 mm. Or your neighbour has normal parquet flooring (in mainland Europe parquet = floorboards)

 

[Great-Uncle-Bulgaria]

Hi WoodYouLike

I'm not certain how thick my neighbours underlayment is, but he reckons it was around 2mm, so it may be some cheap Bulgarian stuff! I can probably find out for sure when he's back over here in the summer. I do know his blocks are the same as mine - as we purchased them via our developer - and his floors are also concrete.

In your experience, do you think the method used by the person that laid my neighbours parquet (blocks glued together with PVA glue in the tongue and groove, but not stuck down on the underlayment - with a resincote lacquer finish) is do-able. I mean, it looks ok... feels ok to walk on... but I'm not sure how this method will stand up to the test of time and temp changes.

Sorry for all the questions.

 

[WoodYouLike]

I know it can be done, but we ourselves never use wood blocks with T&G for parquet, we use the 'old-fashion' 10mm wood blocks glued (and sometimes also nailed, depending on the length of the blocks) on with parquet adhesive. Sorry I can't advice you more.

 

[Great-Uncle-Bulgaria]

Thanks WoodYouLike. Your knowledge in this field is appreciated.

I am definitely erring towards the adhesive route, as it not having them stuck down just seems like a bodge to me.

If anyone has any experience or recommendations regarding not gluing the blocks down, please post your comments - I will be really interested to read them.