Solid wood flooring, Float or Secret nail?

[al4567]

I have a 46m area over 3 rooms and 2 hallways, 3 doors and one wide arch. 4 radiators.
The flooring is a mix of longer and shorter pieces.
It will be laid over the original pine planks, across the rooms, which is the same way the originals. (House is 1913 Edwardian)
The original planks are not bad level-wise at all, but very "gappy" and draughty, so I will lay 3mm underlay.

Would you recommend floating the floor on the underlay, or secret-nailing through the underlay?

Thanks,

Al.

 

[WoodYouLike]

If you install the new boards in the same direction of the existing ones you should lay hardboard or plywood first, then underlayment if you plan to install floating. If you nail the new boards any foam underlayment between hardboard/plywood and new floor will have no use at all.

 

[al4567]

Okay... I assume that if the new flooring is being laid in the same direction as the original, the hardboard is to take away any problems with the jointing of the new coinciding with the old?

Assuming that it's floated... on underlay, have you any recommendations for a good quality glue?

 

[WoodYouLike]

That's correct and the best way to establish that is to lay the hardboard diagonal onto the existing floorboards.

3mm normal foam underlayment should do the trick and for glue: any good quality PVAC wood-glue will do

 

[al4567]

Thanks...... I haven't used wood glues for a while now, although my job is in Composites and I use Epoxy resins and polyester on a daily basis!

How important is the Underlay for thermal insulation? This flooring is on a groundfloor, so neigbours below are not a concern, although I would expect some sound deadening nonetheless, to be kind to our next-door neigbours. The thermal insulation is of much more interest to us really.

 

[WoodYouLike]

We use these products all the time to much satisfaction of our clients. If extra thermal or sound insulation is needed go for the Timbermate Duratex (excluding DPM)

 

[al4567]

Thanks for all the advice so far, we have decided to run the boards the same way as original, so will therefore be laying the hardboard on the diagonal as advised.

The run from the front of the house to the back is about 9 metres. Will 10mm clearance either end be sufficient for this long-ish run of solid wood boards?

One concern I have, is that there is a L-shaped wall which will be "floating" Island-like if you will..... in the middle of the expanse of the flooring. The long side is about 2 metres, and runs the same way as the boards, and the short about 70cm. I guess a more extensive dry-run all the way around this before glueing is going to be essential to make sure it's all square and looks right, but are there any specific issues with boarding around an Island I should know about?

 

[WoodYouLike]

If wood expands it is normally more in the width than in the length direction. The expansion gap has to be calculated based on the width of the room. For solid Oak is it 3 - 4 mm per meter width of the room with a minimum of 10mm. I suggest you keep the same rule of thumb for your pine boards or even a bit more.

Most important issue around your island is to make sure you leave a wide enough expansion gap around it.

 

[al4567]

Okay, all good info, many thanks!

The wood is solid Acacia. The distance i actually 10.1 metres as you walk through the front door into a small square hall, then down a 1 metre wide passage to the doorway into the living room, which forms the final 5.8 metres of the run to the back of the house.
On your advice that makes for about 30-40mm total clearance, call it 15-20 either end? I'll have to check how wide the beading is.

My Partner is Asthmatic hence the flooring, and we intend to Hoover regularly as we do now. We wanted to avoid T-bars etc. between the rooms, so the hoover isn't constantly bumping up and down over them. Do you think the expansion will be any issue in a narrow doorway in the middle of a longish run?

I expect that different woods will have different expansion characteristics, do you know how Acacia responds?

Thanks in advance.

 

[WoodYouLike]

You're talking about the total length of the floor??
How wide is the widest area where you will have to most rows of floor boards next to each other (= width of the room). If you know that, multiply by 3 - 4mm = widht pf expansion gap. The wood won't grow lengthways any more, it's a dead tree now.

don't Hoover! Most vacuum cleaners spread more dust around than they clean up. Use a soft broom or magic swiper and do install T-bars in doorways, treating every room as a separate area. T-bars you will hardly notice because they don't create a step or ramp.
(Or lift your feet )

 

[al4567]

I've done a simple floorplan picture(In Ms Paint incredibly!) showing the layout.
The boards will run across the house, left to right if you will, so the maximum number of boards adjacent to each other will be from the front door all the way through to the far end of the living room, the 10.1 metre run.

Untitled

• al4567
• 23 Jan 2009
• 1

Am I asking a lot to have no T-bar between the hallway and the living room? Is it just a bit tricky or a complete no-no? Ignoring the wide archway between the kitchen and dining room areas, maybe with the intended board direction, it might make sense to use a T-bar between the living room and the rest, creating two areas only?

I take your point regarding the hoovering, but the hoover is a Sebo anti-allergenic job with filtration that will take out the Dust mite Feaces which is a major cause of Asthma. Also I tend to do the hoovering when she's not there, or try to get her to do something elsewhere whilst I do it!

 

[WoodYouLike]

Specially hallways should be treated as a separate area - the temperature is normally different than in other areas: thresholds!
Another benefit of using thresholds is that you can change the direction of the boards in all areas to the most eye pleasing one = lengthways mostly

And if you are the one hoovering, just be careful over the T-bars - you'll thank me in the long run by adding these to your floor.

 

[al4567]

Okay, we'll have a proper look at it all this weekend to determine what we really want in terms of the direction of the boards etc.

What is the preferred method of fixing the T-bars and Ramps?

 

[WoodYouLike]

Depends on which bradn you buy, some come with a metal base you have to screw into the underfloor, some come without and then you will have to pin to lips onto the wood (or glue the base of the threshold to the underfloor)

 

[al4567]

The Credit crunch filters down!

Having waited for delivery of the flooring for a while now, we got a call from the shop.... the company supplying the flooring to them has gone into liquidation!

They may well have been a vibrant growing company who just had the rug pulled out from under them by their bank? Still, I doubt that worried the ex-boss of HBOS now he's on his £60,000 a month consultancy(who the hell is employing him?.... he's just knackered a bank!).

Oh well..... start looking again.