Solid oak click system - gaps between boards

[skvsn]

Hello,

I've recently got several flooring samples sent to me. The floor which I like the most is solid oak 120mm width x 18mm thickness. It is of click installation type.

But I noticed the following - if I join 2 planks together there is no "click" and the join is not tight. Otherwise, there is about 0.5mm play in it. This is completely different to laminate or engineered oak "click" joins which are very solid, don't allow any play at all and produce prominent "click" when joined. I made 2 photos to illustrate this - one with visible gas of about 0.5 mm between 2 pieces and the second one without gap (see attached pics).

The question is - is it OK or is it completely wrong? Is it actually an expansion gap? I though that floating floors should have expansion gaps only at floor edges but not between the planks.

Gap of 0.5 mm (planks are pulled apart)

No gap (planks are pushed to each other)

 

[AronSearle]

I would say for a solid board it's good, though people may disagree with that.

for large floor areas a floating floor may be restricted by heavy furniture, and so having some allowance between boards can avoid problems.

Whether that's the case or it's just poor machining I can only guess.

 

[skvsn]

Over the weekend I had a look at other solid oak flooring with "click" installation in couple of stores selling floors. Most of them had the same gap between boards when joined as I mentioned in my original post. The only one model which didn't have the gap was found in B&Q.

So although I'm not 100% sure but it looks like solid wood click systems are designed to have some play/gap. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'd like to have no gaps between boards so now looking towards engineered oak.

 

[crazydaze]

Why do you want a solid floor?

Personally I'd choose a good quality engineered over a cheap solid and I would never float a solid as it just won't be stable through the seasons like an engineered would. Be very wary of buying flooring from DIY stores etc, it's usually cheap for a reason.