Relcaimed flooring, good idea ? .....

[woowoospanner]

....or a shortcut to pain,tears and financial ruin ?

we have 36m2 to do, a lounge/dining room on a victorian semi thats had the knock through. The floor is poured concrete with a bitumen layer over the top. As suggested in other threads i was going to lay it floating glueing the T&G.

I've seen a place in Kent doing french oak for £31 but have also found a place doing reclaimed stuff that sells it sanded and T&G'ed

would like to hear from anyone whos tried to lay reclaimed flooring and come up against problems .

thanks in advance

 

[Aulus]

You might have a few problems with warped boards, but easily overcome. Make sure you properly acclimatise the wood in the room.

A far nastier problem is recalimed boards that were not originally actaully used as floorboards.

Unless the wood has had years of compression by walking & furniture, it will be very prone to flaking & gradually the fibres tease apart giving you an endless supply of splinters. No amount of diamond hard varnish will stop that.

 

[frank_spencer]

I personally would never lay a reclaimed wooden floor floating as there are too many unknowns as to the conditioning of the wood. You could lay it, have it looking fine and then with a change of season and moisture content find it moves all over the place. I would always either stick it down with a good adhesive or nail it.