floating solid T&G oak floor onto concrete?

[therackals]

Concrete dry but slightly uneven, 30 years old. Room 6.4x5 meters. I have a pile of "Elka" oiled oak solid flooring to lay. I am planning to put down DPC, 8mm sound/fibre (green) boards as underlay. Glue up the T&G with PVA and float the oak on top.
Will this work?
I have read much conflicting advice, so am a bit confused.
Best regards
Hayden

 

[WoodYouLike]

Ho wide are your planks?

Make sure (whatever installation method you use) to leave wide enough expansion gaps around the perimeter of the floor, in this case (5 meter wide) at least 5 x 4 = 20mm
(4mm gap per meter width of the room)

 

[therackals]

the planks are 5" wide
Hayden

 

[WoodYouLike]

125 - 127mm wide, ok, not too wide for the width of the room.

Your suggested installation method should be no problem, but as mentioned above your expansion gap must be 18 - 20 mm!

 

[therackals]

Thanks for the quick response.
It has been suggested to fill the gap with cork strips. Is this good practice or should it be left completely open? The gap will be hidden under the skirts anyway.
Best regards
Hayden

 

[WoodYouLike]

It has been suggested to fill the gap with cork strips. Is this good practice or should it be left completely open? The gap will be hidden under the skirts anyway.

Never Ever fill your expansion gaps around a normal T&G floor with cork - it fills up your expansion gap1

For us it is still a mystery how the cork strip feature in a design parquet floor has ended as method to use in an expansion gaps of plank flooring!

 

[mattysupra]

It has been suggested to fill the gap with cork strips. Is this good practice or should it be left completely open? The gap will be hidden under the skirts anyway.

Never Ever fill your expansion gaps around a normal T&G floor with cork - it fills up your expansion gap1

For us it is still a mystery how the cork strip feature in a design parquet floor has ended as method to use in an expansion gaps of plank flooring!

The answer is woody that 'junkers' came up with the stupid plan of using cork strip so that the fitter was forced to leave expansion and to stop the floor drifting/moving! ( which reminds me, i came across some neat little spring clips in Germany that sit in the expansion to stop the floor drifting/moving around, but they dont reduce your expansion space. I will find out who makes them for you ) Anyway when junkers came up with this plan they would only recommend a small area to be fitted without expansion breaks.
So as woody has recommend. Dont use cork strips!

 

[WoodYouLike]

( which reminds me, i came across some neat little spring clips in Germany that sit in the expansion to stop the floor drifting/moving around, but they dont reduce your expansion space. I will find out who makes them for you )

Hi Matty, don't look any further than RenotecDuo in our Home town, they invented these strips - and coincidently our main manufacturer (also from our home town) asked last week what the correct translation in English would be for these 'span-veren' or parket-veer. I thought the expression Tension-strip or Tension-spring would cover it

I would place the link in here, but the pages are all in Dutch

 

[therackals]

I must admit when I heard it, it sounded suspect. There would not be a lot of point in leaving a gap to then fill it with more (spongy or otherwise) wood. Thank you for all your advice I hope to begin floating (rather than sinking ) in a few days. Regarding the spring clip system, I would have thought the furniture would stop everything sliding around.
Best regards
Hayden

 

[WoodYouLike]

Hayden, in normal day to day circumstances you are right that furniture and even the weight of the wood floor itself will prevent it from moving around.
The Tension clip is there to keep the floor better together during the normal seasonal changes in air-humidity effecting the wood floor, not to prevent the normal movement

 

[dds]

Not much more to add. But perhaps a DPM (Damp Proof Membrane) as opposed to a DPC. It will be cheaper.

 

[therackals]

I have laid a membrane. It is a "just in case" job as there is a Damp proof course under the concrete already.
Decided to lay the green mat diagonally under the T&G. First 3 rows of oak boards down, now waiting for the glue to dry before I continue laying.
Best regards
Hayden