Hardwood flooring: Spacings for battens

[Finneganjp]

Hello,
Hope somebody can answer this question for me?????
I am about to lay a solid hardwood floor on a concrete slab in the lounge of a new house.
I have allowed the floor to dry out for the last two months and intend on sheeting it with 1000 gauge DPM, laying battens over that and secret nailing the floor to them.
The floor is broken up into lengths of 900mm,800mm,500mm,400mm and 300mm.
My question is,
What spacings should the battens be to accomodate the floor and is it common practice to have a batten directly underneath the joining of each end piece.
Any advice welcome!!!!!!!

 

[Finneganjp]

Any advice, ANY at all greatfully welcome.
Are battens placed under each joining or are they just laid at say 200mm centres???

 

[WoodYouLike]

Hi there.

First question: how wide is your room? If not wider then 5 or 6 meters why do you want battens?
Second question: is your concrete underfoor fairly level? Then why not install the floor floating on DPM and sound underlayment?

Hope this helps. We install floors this way on a weekly base without problems. We think it's typical 'English' to have battens where solid wooden flooring is concerned, but in the modern houses of these days (concrete underfloor instead of joists) there is no need to secretely nail T&G flooring.

 

[Finneganjp]

Hi,
Thanks for your reply.
The floor is about 4m long X 3m Wide. The store i bought the floor from informed me that it could not be laid as a floating floor. It left me with two options.
1. Glue the floor with a mastic glue directly to the concrete floor
2. Install battens or plywood sheeting and secret nail the floor to it
I went for option two, i even have battens (2"X1") bought, and intend on renting the secret nailer. I am Confident enough as i have laid a couple (2) floors like this before only that i laid them on top of old floor boards and not a conrete slab.

My reason for choosing battens is that since its a new house the floor will probably take close to a year to fully dry out and with the battens the actual floor wont be in direct contact with the concrete.
The only thing im trying to get straight in my head is should there be a batten under the joining of each end piece or does it matter??????

 

[WoodYouLike]

Hi

In your first post I also saw that you have some very short lengths (400 and 300mm). We always recommend that when installing on joists every boards should at least link with tow joists for stability. And joist should not be further apart then 30 - 35cm heart-to-heart.

Which store gave you this 'bright' idea?

 

[chappers]

I would agree with woodyoulike this floor doesnt sound like its designed to be nailed, with lengths that short you are going to need battens at about 100 centres.In answer to your original question normally you would cut the boards to length to hit a joist or batten centre.
Where did you get the flooring and is it a branded make sound like you would be better off glueing it down using something like Lecol parquet adhesive.

 

[Finneganjp]

I am definatly going to nail it to the battens as i have them already bought, also there are far more long lenghts than short ones. I have asked around and the solution i have come up with is to space my battens at 300mm centres that way the longest overhand i will have is 200mm and i will place a small length of 2"x1" under these nailed to the floor. There will only be a few of these anyway so helpfully this will sove my problem. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Martin g]

Tend to agree with the man from woodulike.
only problem with battening the floor is that the purpose of laying a DPM is to prevent the moisture in the concrete(which incidentally will take at least a year to dry out) from going into the wood.
If you fix the battens to the floor your going to put hundreds of holes in it, leaving areas where damp could penetrate.
Overlaying may be a better option.

 

[WoodYouLike]

It's the woman from woodyoulike, but I won't hold that against u