Fitting Solid Wood Flooring?

[LazyD]

Hello all

This is my first post here. I'm looking for some help with fitting solid wood flooring bought from homebase. It's for my sister, she bought it on sale and I'd like to help her save a little money by fitting it for her.

The wood is "Homebase Solid Wood Flooring, Solid Parawood", each pack contains 1 sq meter consisting of 5 planks, 1250 x 160 x 15mm.

I have fitted laminate flooring before and did a pretty good job I think but this looks a wee bit different. For a start it requires glue, and I'm not sure if I should fit a membrane or not. My sisters flat has lino on top of the concrete floor already, so I was thinking I just have to put the underlay on and the wood straight on top of that?

Also the pack instructions say to start laying along the longest wall first, however this is not the way my sister would like it in her flat, she wants it the other way so that it would link up out to the hallway (and run along the hall) and then on into the bedroom. The shorter walls are only a meter or so shorter than the longer walls. Can I do it starting along the shorter wall instead? (This is the way I did it with the laminate flooring in another location and that seems to be ok...)

I'm not quite sure what to do at the door ways, should I fit the planks right through the door ways into the hall/other room or should I use a strip sepearting them fixed to the floor? Is this just a matter of taste or is there functional implications to this? What should I do at the front door?

There are a couple of things I didn't understand in the instructions, first

Few walls are straight, but by laying the first three rows straight will save time

It then goes on to explain how to initally start laying the first board in the corner. I don't understand what they mean by saving time and getting the first three rows straight... ? Also,

where the wall is not straight increase the overlap on the spaces and pack out the gap to a maximum of 14mm, DO NOT DECREASE THE GAP! If the wall is increasingly uneven more so than the spacers will allow, then trace onto the first row of boards by pushing them flush to the wall and running a geometry compass open to 12mm

Ok I think I understand that, but wouldn't that just make the first row of boards and all subsequent boards bent like the wall? As mentioned above the gap required at the edges is 12mm for these boards.

Is cutting these planks with a jigsaw ok, and what kind of blade should I use?

Lastly, any tips in regards to the glueing? Like I say I've never done this before, seems like it could get a bit messy, sticking to the underlay underneath and what not?


I know I'm asking for a lot here but obviously I want to make sure I don't make a mess of it, even though I'm pretty confident I won't.

Any tips or advide would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

LD

 

[WoodYouLike]

Hi LazyD;

Have a look first at these 'simple' fitting instructions for wooden flooring

 

[mattysupra]

woodyoulike are you intrested in a primatech pneumatic nailer ? let me know as soon as possible as on ebay going very cheap!

 

[WoodYouLike]

Thanks for the offer, appreciated. But it has to be "no thank you" for the moment though, nailers and tackers all in good working order

 

[bwalker]

Hi Lazy D,

I saw your post from last year and this is exactly what I am doing now - putting the parawood onto a concrete floor.

Can you give me some advice as to how you did it in the end please?

Cheers,

Billy.

 

[GHFlooring]

The best way to fit it would be to glue it to the subfloor but first you would have to rip the old vinyl up and make sure that the floor is level then it is just a case of glue the flooring ensuring you leave expansion gaps

 

[bwalker]

Thanks.

However one other thing to add. I don't have a vinyl floor there. The floor is just solid concrete. The way I understand it is that I would lay down a damp proof membrane, glue that to the floor and then glue the wood to the membrane, making sure I leave the correct gap at the sides.

Is that right? Is there anything else I need to do like nail the wood to into the concrete somehow?

Cheers,

Billy

 

[GHFlooring]

if the floor needs a dpm then you would have to put a liquid dpm down if the floor has a dpm then just glue straight to the floor