Solid Wood Fitting Query

[WoodifICould]

Hi. I'm about to install (as a first timer) Solid wood flooring in my living room and Hall. Both screed subfloors. House is 30yrs old I have a couple of questions:

1. When doing the hall. What do i do about the 15mm expansion gap needed at the front door? Is beeding required here or would the wood go right up to the door?

2. In the living roon (and hall) i'm taking off the skirting to get a better look and leaving the 15mm expansion gap. At the moment, i'm opting for underlayment but with the gap. How do i stop the floor moving about once i have everything back on it?

As a last side note. I'm not sure whether to go T&G or try out the Easy-Fit, Click Loc type boards. Anyone had any bad experiences either way?

Thanks in advance.

 

[mac391]

1, Solid wood expands widthways and only very marginally lengthways. A 5mm or 10mm gap at the front door would be fine if the floor is running the length of the hallway. Either way a cover strip is needed.

As a guide, a 15mm expansion gap is not required over an area of around 1 metre width, such as a hallway, the guidelines in your instructions are there to play it safe,

2 I would never recommend a floating solid floor installation, but chinese companies do and that's probably where your flooring will come from. You can't stop it moving by this method. You would be better off laying a
DPM (damproof membrane) and fixing with adhesive. Or,,,, buy an engineered floor that is suitable for floating.

As a last side note

Easy fit is definately not easy unless it is uniclic

 

[WoodifICould]

Thanks Mac391,

Very useful on the Hallway info.

So easy-fit is out but when you say "DPM...and fixing with adhesive" Do you mean stick the wood floord to the DPM or the DPM to the concrete subfloor?

So it would be subfloor, DPM then wood? No other underlay?

Sorry. First timer here so just need to get my info right.

Cheers

 

[mac391]

Yes it's

Sub-floor
DPM
Adhesive
Flooring

In that order, just check the adhesive is suitable to fit on a DPM F.ball have one, just can't rmember what it's called.

Here the link www.f-ball.co.uk/

 

[WoodifICould]

Ok great. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Symptoms]

WiIC - consider using a decent self-adhesive underlayment (something like Elastilon). Go to their website for installation methods and double check their advice regarding moisture content of the concrete sub-floor ... hire a moisture meter to check. Lay a DPM if necessary then the underlayment to which your solid wood is bonded; if the sub is dry go straight with the underlayment.

At the front door consider laying a single length of your T&G flooring ACROSS the width of the hall with the groove facing into the hallway (before fitting cut/plane off the tongue on the other side). All the length-wise boards you now lay ensure their end tongues go into the groove on that single cross board. IMO this will result in a much more pleasing 'termination' by the front door than a stip of beading; it'll also allow expansion/contraction of the hall boards as they'll be allowed to 'move' in the groove of the cross board.

 

[mac391]

Yes, maybe elatilon is better than when i first used it 10 years ago. Can't find anything on their site that says it incorporates a dpm though i only had a quick look, that would save a lot of time and money.

To me, a solid wood floor should be solid fixed, if so it can last hundreds of years litterally, just look in your local church, they are all stuck down with adhesive and have been for a long time...

I'm not knocking elastilon, just thought it was crap when i first used it, such as getting the long edge in, then the underlay bunching up when trying to get the short edge in...

Anyway, the accoustics of a solid wood floor glued to concrete are superb, your music and guitars sound so sweet..

Good luck whichever you choose

 

[WoodifICould]

Cheers both. Am lloking at doing this myself so really looking for the right option for the long term but something that i can actually manage too so.... i'll look at both options here.

With the dpm.would i need to tape that to the sublfoor or leave it loose?

On the expansion gap. one thing i forgot to ask was about the bottom step of the stairs. I take it i'd still leave te gap against the bottom step and use trim to cover it up? (stairs will be carpeted and not sure whether to do that before or after the wood goes down either...)

Thanks again for the advice