Hi,
Forgive me for jumping straight in with a question (or two), but I have searched for an answer in the forum and can't find anything that quite matches. Apologies if I've missed it/my search terms haven't picked it up.
So...here's the craic:
My wife and I are just about to complete on our first house (woohoo!), a 1930s end of terrace with 2 main bedrooms and a box room all on the first floor. The stairs and upstairs have a horrible white(ish) carpet that is covered in dog hairs and needs to go. Added to this, we're both fans of exposed floorboards, as long as they are done nicely!
Being poor and wanting to make our mark on the house, I'm taking 2 weeks off work to sand the stairs and the upstairs bedrooms/hallway, along with painting the master bedroom and clean/move in. 2 weeks is all I have (about 12 days in total if I add two Sundays in) and then we're off on holiday.
So...the question is, as well as doing everything I have already mentioned, do those of you who have done this before think it would be good to take the opportunity to pull up all the floorboards on the first floor, put some rockwool (RWA45 100mm) in between the joists and rubber strips (3mm?) on the joists, then screw the floorboards back down? Also thinking I might take a few hours to ensure all the pipes are insulated
My wife thinks I'm mental to try and do all of this in the time frame I have, but we have a 1 year old and are hoping to become foster carers in the near future, and having lived in houses with bare floors and no sound insulation, I know how noisy it can be.
My view is, if I'm in there doing all this stuff and I have enough time, then why wouldn't I? We can stretch to the cost of the insulation slabs/netting and rubber strips, and I have quite a few tools so there isn't much outlay there (a decent floor lifting bar maybe), and I'm not a bad DIYer (my shelves all stay up .
We did have a peak under the carpet when visiting and the floorboards (should have said they're pine floorboards) look in pretty good condition, so I'm not too worried about busting a load of boards.
Total area for underfloor insulation and sanding is approximately 32m^2 (more for sanding as the stairs are in addition to this figure)
Should I do it?
If I should, do my plans sound reasonable? Any further recommendations on the above? And can anyone advise on the best type of screw to replace the brads?
Ideally I would like to use some sort of crosshead screw (pozi?) which doesn't need pilot drilling and will just self tap into the joists (though 3mm of rubber)? I have seen other posts on this recommending spax with a torx head, but I'm reluctant as getting them out again might be a bit of a job. I could go flathead but they are a pain in the...to put in. So crosshead is where I end up.
[edit] should have added that we will probably wax the boards rather than varnish, but not 100% on this yet [/edit]
I am also considering replacing all of the skirting board at the same time (if I pull the boards up), but that might really push the wife over the edge....it's just the current skirting is horrible and looks like they've got about 20 year's worth of gloss caked on up on them..
If anyone can give me some guidance on what's worth doing and what isn't, I'd be very grateful.
Cheers
Forgive me for jumping straight in with a question (or two), but I have searched for an answer in the forum and can't find anything that quite matches. Apologies if I've missed it/my search terms haven't picked it up.
So...here's the craic:
My wife and I are just about to complete on our first house (woohoo!), a 1930s end of terrace with 2 main bedrooms and a box room all on the first floor. The stairs and upstairs have a horrible white(ish) carpet that is covered in dog hairs and needs to go. Added to this, we're both fans of exposed floorboards, as long as they are done nicely!
Being poor and wanting to make our mark on the house, I'm taking 2 weeks off work to sand the stairs and the upstairs bedrooms/hallway, along with painting the master bedroom and clean/move in. 2 weeks is all I have (about 12 days in total if I add two Sundays in) and then we're off on holiday.
So...the question is, as well as doing everything I have already mentioned, do those of you who have done this before think it would be good to take the opportunity to pull up all the floorboards on the first floor, put some rockwool (RWA45 100mm) in between the joists and rubber strips (3mm?) on the joists, then screw the floorboards back down? Also thinking I might take a few hours to ensure all the pipes are insulated
My wife thinks I'm mental to try and do all of this in the time frame I have, but we have a 1 year old and are hoping to become foster carers in the near future, and having lived in houses with bare floors and no sound insulation, I know how noisy it can be.
My view is, if I'm in there doing all this stuff and I have enough time, then why wouldn't I? We can stretch to the cost of the insulation slabs/netting and rubber strips, and I have quite a few tools so there isn't much outlay there (a decent floor lifting bar maybe), and I'm not a bad DIYer (my shelves all stay up .
We did have a peak under the carpet when visiting and the floorboards (should have said they're pine floorboards) look in pretty good condition, so I'm not too worried about busting a load of boards.
Total area for underfloor insulation and sanding is approximately 32m^2 (more for sanding as the stairs are in addition to this figure)
Should I do it?
If I should, do my plans sound reasonable? Any further recommendations on the above? And can anyone advise on the best type of screw to replace the brads?
Ideally I would like to use some sort of crosshead screw (pozi?) which doesn't need pilot drilling and will just self tap into the joists (though 3mm of rubber)? I have seen other posts on this recommending spax with a torx head, but I'm reluctant as getting them out again might be a bit of a job. I could go flathead but they are a pain in the...to put in. So crosshead is where I end up.
[edit] should have added that we will probably wax the boards rather than varnish, but not 100% on this yet [/edit]
I am also considering replacing all of the skirting board at the same time (if I pull the boards up), but that might really push the wife over the edge....it's just the current skirting is horrible and looks like they've got about 20 year's worth of gloss caked on up on them..
If anyone can give me some guidance on what's worth doing and what isn't, I'd be very grateful.
Cheers
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