Solid Oak Floorboards, without T&G ?

[Dbank]

I'm considering replacing a victorian pine floor with solid oak, joists are good with plenty of ventilated clearance below. The boards will be 22mm X 180mm.

I was intending to use boards without T&G as I prefer to see traditional gaps between the boards. To me T&Ged boards look too perfect in a period property and are a PITA if you need to lift a board later.

I was intending to insulate between the joists with 10 or 25mm insulation board and fix the boards with Spax Wirox Countersunk Solid Wood Flooring Screws.

I would welcome any thoughts.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Too perfect in a period property? As a matter of aesthetics putting oak boards in, especially modern narrow boards (6in wide or less) as opposed to the 12 to 16in yellow pine boards used in the 1830s and 1840s (Victoria came to the throne in 1837, I believe) or even the 12in boards still common in the latter part of the 19th century, seems somehow more wrong to my mind. You might like to consider that three sided match planers (basically a thicknesser with two side heads capable of accommodating a grooving cutter block on one side and a tongue cutting block on the other were in use increasingly in larger towns and cities from before the 1830s onwards with firms such as McDowall (est. 1825) and Ransomes manufacturing them and later on (1840s and later) producing 4-sided through feed moulders. By the 1851 Great Exhibition there were at least 6 firms in the UK manufacturing such machines and the day of the mechanised workshop had well and truly arrived. And could you blame the Victorians for wanting these new fangled T&G floorboards? After all they were much less draughty than plain edged boards and could be secret nailed through the tongues to avoid seeing nasty cut nail heads on the faces of the boards

I'm not saying don't do it. I am trying to put T&G flooring into some form of historical context by showing that it is older than you may think (and hand planed examples were used in many of the great houses of the William and Mary and Georgian periods). As an aside the 1860 mill office (and possibly mill owners house originally) we are currently renovating has original wide T&G yellow pine flooring throughout. The adjoining mill (about 20 years older, c.1838) is similar except for having loose tongues which are strips of 1/16in thick rolled iron and a bugger to cut out (if and when required). Even our little 1881 terrace house has T&G floorboards (produced on a 4-sider), showing that by that stage mechanical production had made T&G affordable for even modest houses.

So T&G is older than you may think and was originally, in fact, a sign of wealth because it originally cost more to make than plain boards, whilst later on it was more economical for builders to install than square edges boards

 

[Dbank]

Thanks for the info, I hadn't appreciated the history of T&G, I may have to do a bit more research...

 

[Tigercubrider]

Just to complicate things, my 50's house has t&g boards, but 4-5"
Stupid thing is that they also have a gap /grove machined in big enough to drop a pencil into.
It's a pain in the harriss.
Chose well as any rug or carpet over my boards needs tons of underlay to stop the grooves showing through

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Just to complicate things, my 50's house has t&g boards, but 4-5"
Stupid thing is that they also have a gap /grove machined in big enough to drop a pencil into.
It's a pain in the harriss.

Well, certainly in the late 1940s and into the early 1950s softwood used in house construction was often fairly poor quality and could be badly seasoned or even insufficiently dry when machined and installed (remembering that the vast majority of houses at the time were coal fire or at best gas heated and consequently relatively damp against modern centrally heated houses). All this was because of shortages and rationing of construction materials until about 1954 meaning that corners did get cut. The upshot is that T&G could often be installed at about 16% MC (moisture content), about the maximum MC obtainable consistently from air drying (or the result of shortening the kilning process to save money) and only slightly below the point at which rot can form. Such timber might be expected to eventually dry out to 10 to 12% MC in service in a gas/coal heated home and experience some shrinkage across the boards. I'll bet, however, that your house is now centrally heated and has both double glazing and loft insulation, so the boards could well gave dried out down to 5 or 6% - potentially the cause of the (excessive) shrinkage. Two possible solutions are either to lift, shuffle the boards up and renail them (a royal PIA that risks breaking boards and requires a few spares as well) or to saw down thin strips of timber which are planed to fit then glued and hammered into the gaps. Once the glue has set the protruding strips are hand planed (I.e with a real block plane not a power jobbie) then sanded off to finish. This is a fiddly job which doesn't always work if there is any subsequent movement in the floor

 

[johnny2007]

Too perfect in a period property? As a matter of aesthetics putting oak boards in, especially modern narrow boards (6in wide or less) as opposed to the 12 to 16in yellow pine boards used in the 1830s and 1840s (Victoria came to the throne in 1837, I believe) or even the 12in boards still common in the latter part of the 19th century seems somehow more wrong to my mind. You might like to consider that three sided match planers (basically a thicknesser with two side heads capable of accommodating a grooving cutter block on one side and a tongue cutting lock on the other were in use increasingly in larger towns and cities from before the 1830s onwards with firms such as McDowall (est. 1825) and Ransomes manufacturing them and later on (1840s and later) producing 4-sided through feed moulders. By the 1851 Great Exhibition there were at least 6 firms in the UK manufacturing such machines and the day of the mechanised workshop had well and truly arrived. And could you blame the Victorians for wanting these new fangled T&G floorboards? After all they were much less draughty than plain edged boards and could be secret nailed through the tongues to avoid seeing nasty cut nail heads on the faces of the boards

I'm not saying don't do it. I am trying to put T&G flooring into some form of historical context by showing that it is older than you may think (and hand planed examples were used in many of the great houses of the William and Mary and Georgian periods). As an aside the 1860 mill office (and possibly mill owners house originally) we are currently renovating has original wide T&G yellow pine flooring throughout. The adjoining mill (about 20 years older, c.1838) is similar except for having loose tongues which are strips of 1/16in thick rolled iron and a bugger to cut out (if and when required). Even our little 1881 terrace house has T&G floorboards (produced on a 4-sider), showing that by that stage mechanical production had made T&G affordable for even modest houses.

So T&G is older than you may think and was originally, in fact, a sign of wealth because it originally cost more to make than plain boards, whilst later on it was more economical for builders to install than square edges boards

Top man.
I really enjoyed reading this.

 

[Why Not Indeed]

Top man.
I really enjoyed reading this.

Check out the "Thanks" button, bottom right of each post.

 

[foxhole]

Can’t think of anything less authentic than screwing floorboards down.

 

[Dbank]

Thanks for all of your input, I have reconsidered and will probably go with T&G with a bevel and secret nailing.