Oak floor

[carlosfandango1976]

Hi, I'm putting off laying an oak floor of mine due to problems I had with it upstairs when it was laid by a chippy. Basically the oak was secret nailed to the joists and glued (between boards) also. In each room a massive gap has appeared at one point in the room (between and along one set of boards only). It looks like it's opened up in each room at the weakest points.

Two issues here.

1.How do I correct this? Is it possible to rout the gaps and lay some new pieces in, or does it have to come up?

2.When I lay the floors downstairs, can I rely on the fact that the floor has had more time to acclimatise to the underfloor heating system which is directly beneath the floor, or will this just happen anyway with underfloor heating and oak? If this is the case then I have been completely misadvised.

Any constructive comments or help would be greatly appreciated.

Rob.

 

[WoodYouLike]

Re 1: when oak shrinks it indeed finds the 'weakest link' where the gap will be the largest. It could be that your chippie hasn't nailed all boards - some do only alternative rows - creating the weak link. Best is to re-install the boards more tightly.

Re 2: Solid Oak and UFH.
We always recommend wood-engineered flooring to be installed on UFH, NOT solid oak (or very narrow boards - but still).