Skirting boards

[sadders]

Simple question:

What size gap do you leave between the skirting boards and floor boards?

Had a good search and cant find the answer anywhere.

 

[gregers]

if you really want to get anal about it slip in a bit of glass paper.i just usually slap it down and fix.

 

[big-all]

the function off the skirting originally was to protect the bottom off the wall
and to seal the gap between floor and wall to stop draughts so should be tight to the floor
but nowadays most houses have floor covering

 

[stevethejoiner]

No gap!
Why would you want a gap?

The wood will shrink back anyway and you will get a gap.

When I did my apprenticeship in the 70s it was all real wood for skirtings no MDF and the like. I was taught to cut the skirt to length, scribe it to follow any unevenness of the floor so it hugged the floor line.
When ready to fix it we would lay a 1200mm piece of solid timber, it was called 4' then, of say 4x2, at right angles to the wall and rest it on the top edge of the skirting very near to where we were to place a fixing. We then put a foot on the end of the 4x2 as close to the wall as possible and where its resting on the top edge of the skirting and push down with all your body weight, thus press the skirting hard down onto the floorboard to close any gap and fix well.

 

[noseall]

As the guys have said, there should be no gap.

The gaps you do see are a product of shrinkage and or laziness. Both the skiting and the floor board shrink back leaving a gap anywhere upwards of 5mm.

 

[joe-90]

The main thing is to get the top level. Don't go following the contour of the floor. Scribe as necessary.

My old Victorian house has gaps of about 10mm - very draughty is winter.

 

[stevethejoiner]

The main thing is to get the top level. Don't go following the contour of the floor. Scribe as necessary.

My old Victorian house has gaps of about 10mm - very draughty is winter.

I could have been more specific.
And yes its nice if the top is level but I do not think that notices when the wall is painted, and you cut wallpaper into the top of the skirting anyway so does not have to be level for decoration. More important is uneven gaps at the bottom edge along its length especially, particularly important if its on a quality polished wooden or oiled floor, but if the final job is a carpeted floor its not that important.
But if the floor does run out of level you can pack the skirting up one end so the top is level, then follow the contour of the floor with a scribe. I don't know any carpenters today especially on new build properties that go to that length.

As for your 10mm gaps, I would get them filled and save on your fuel bills next winter. But maybe you like a well ventilated house.

 

[joinerjohn]

Bear in mind that in Victorian times, the skirting would have been fixed before the plasterer came along. It's only in modern times that the plasterer skims walls etc before the skirting is fixed afterwards.

 

[tony1851]

In an old edition of McKay, there is an isometric of a skirting board tongued along the bottom edge, and this tongue is set in a narrow rebate cut along the top of floor boards. This was supposed to keep dust/vermin out etc.
I've never seen it done, even in quality older houses.

 

[stevethejoiner]

I have never seen the bottom of the skirting tongue and grooved into the floorboard, but when I did my apprenticeship we used to dove tail the ends of the skirtings and bottoms of archirtave into plynth blocks at the foot of the door linings. They were high quality properties.
Lol, those were the days, we didn't even use power tools, or have plastic plug. It was a brace and bit, rawl plug jumper, and fibre plugs or wood propellers fixed into mortar joints to fix linings, arch and skirting.
And carry my tool bag on a bus.
Sounds like I am 100, but that was only in the early 70s.

 

[maltaron]

Hi Steve, nice to see proper joiners still about. I served my time in mid sixties so retired now but still use (& sharpen) my Disston hand saws, wooden jack and jointer planes etc. and we used Big Six asbestos sheeting for garage roofs and we are still alive!!!

 

[tony1851]

plynth blocks at the foot of the door linings.

Nice to see mention of plinth blocks; no-one seems to use them now. They always form a neat junction between the architrave and skirting, particularly when there is a difference in thickness between the two.

The skirting is usually thicker than the architrave, and it just looks so naff and cheap when the architrave goes straight to the floor.

 

[joe-90]

Yay to plinth blocks. The old ways were the best ways.

 

[gregers]

ive recently removed an old stud wall which had dovetails into the door lining this was in turn connected to the skirting boards,nice bit of jionery work shame i smashed it to bits.

diston saws eh,id love to find an original,ive got a sandvick copy huge thing it is . brand new in its cover.

 

[stevethejoiner]

Hi Steve, nice to see proper joiners still about. I served my time in mid sixties so retired now but still use (& sharpen) my Disston hand saws, wooden jack and jointer planes etc. and we used Big Six asbestos sheeting for garage roofs and we are still alive!!!

The last time I used my old saw set tool was for a "guess what this is?" game at a Christmas party. No one had a clue what the funny plier thing was!

Don't talk about Asbestos. Between 1976-78 the company I worked for had a contract to fire check hotel bedroom doors. We worked all over London and the South East cutting, drilling, countersinking and screwing 8 x 4 flat sheets of the stuff. All by hand, no mask, no ventilation, we looked like flour sifters. Even now at 58 I worry every time I cough, that my time is up.