new maple flooring

  • Thread starter 2scoops0406
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2scoops0406

I am in the process of laying a new maple floor in our conservatory / kitchen. The floor is solid maple 2 1/4 inch by 3/4 inch maple planks. Whilst I think the installation is going OK, the gaps between the planks are sometimes bigger than I'd expected. THe gaps are not massive, the largest probably being about 2mm, I was just expecting the fit to be tighter. Is this to be expected, or am I doing something wrong? I am fitting about 5 rows of wood at a time, glueing and cramping as I go.
 
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Sorry, I don't have an answer to your question but as I will be laying similiar flooring soon I was wondering if you could tell me what you have between the maple and the, I presume, concrete floor?
 
Throw the instruction away :LOL:

As with all T&G flooring the manufacter tell you to glue the groove which I disagree with. You will find it a lot easier if you put glue on the tongue side only and will prevent airlock problem. I'm guessing what happening is the glue in the groove side is giving you airlock which why you cannot close the gap. The tongue side don't give you that problem as you are glueing the top & bottom therefore no airlock.

The other problem could be the plank have a slight twist or bow.
 
Thanks for the responses, I've sorted the problem out. It was caused by the flipping cramps (clamps, cramps, AdamW whatever ;) ) They were causing the flooring to bow, making the joins pull apart slightly, I think the bit about the airlock in the groove is possible, and a resonable suggestion, but in light of the fact that it is going together well now, I won't change method, but I'll definitely bear it in mind. To answer the previous post, I'm using a foam underlay, its about 2mm thick, simply lay over the concrete, it doesn't matter about the overlaps, there's enough "give" to compensate for this. Good luck with your installation, just remember, easy with the clamps, they can cause quite a lot of bother. Y'all have a nice weekend.
 
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Eddie M said:
the bit about the airlock in the groove is possible, and a resonable suggestion,
There are mostly a problem in the laminated flooring type and not wood
 
Getting there, but is dead slow. The boards defintely aren't "prefect" I think I mastered where to place the clamps to bring the stuff into better alignment. I had a problem though, half way, this is where the run of the planks is about 8 meters, the "line" of the planks started to go off. this meant that each successive row was subject to potentially ever increasing gaps, definitely not what I want. so I deliberately layed a row with slight counter gaps (no more than 2mm) in them in order to make the leading face straight. Is this the way to do it, or are there better ways. Would appreciate the vierws of a floorer on this. Thanks again.
 
I find the best way is to have a long straight edge at he beginging and do approx 2 row at a time and let the glue dry properly and then do the next 2 row again and so on. A long time this way but it will stop any movement and gap problems.
 
Wouldn't have time to do this, the installation is about 90 planks wide.
 

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