Wood flooring advice

[arh]

I am looking to install wood flooring to the ground floor of my house. Exisitng floor is a mixture of floorboards and screed (recent extension). 2 rooms are screed only and one room is mixture of wood and screed. I have been asking many people but get different comments. Please can you advise:

1) My builder recommends engineered wood over solid wood as he says if is more waterproof. Some suppliers have advised that this is not the case and he is saying this as it is easier to fit eng?

2) Can both eng and solid wood be installed as floating floors

3) Should I seal the screed, apply DPM/underlay and then lay the floor? Some people advise that no underlay is required over concrete?

4) I have installed laminate before and it was easy. Is installing eng and solid as easy?

5) Do you have to nail/glue solid wood to the floor/battens on concrete? I know that eng can be installed as floating.

6) Which type of floor is more hardwearing - eng or solid with kids in the house? Or should I even think about laminate?

7) What are reasonable labour charges for install per sqm?

Sorry for so many questions.
Thanks.
Arh.

 

[WoodYouLike]

1) your builder is right, but both products are 'easy' to fit
2) yes, normally
3) if screed is level and sound no seal is needed, do us DPM + sound-insulation
4) could be
5) no
6) depends on solid top layer of eng. if 3.5mm or thicker it's as sturdy as solid. No, laminted isn't hard-wearing (but I'm biased )
7) depends on too many things.

As for different types of underfloor and which underlayment to use, see here

 

[Rubberball]

sorry to jump in.
My whole ground floor of my house is concrete and i also have been thinking about fitting a floor surface.

Wood the joins not eventually come apart if a real wood floor was fitted without nailing ?

i was told by Floors 2 go that the only way to fit solid wood was to raise the floor up 20mm by fitting hardboard underneath and then nailing it to that.

or otherwise by fitting a sticky underlay pad in which the real wood is stuck to it to hold it together.

 

[WoodYouLike]

Wood the joins not eventually come apart if a real wood floor was fitted without nailing ?

i was told by Floors 2 go that the only way to fit solid wood was to raise the floor up 20mm by fitting hardboard underneath and then nailing it to that.

or otherwise by fitting a sticky underlay pad in which the real wood is stuck to it to hold it together.

I won't snear, I'll try not to
Why on earth would you want to do that, and what do floors2go sales persons know? (have a f2g recruitement ad pinned next to my desk: retail experience is a plus, but not needed - no mentioning whatsoever about having some wood and flooring experience)
Solid borads with T&G can be installed floating easily, as long as your rooms isn't wider than 6 meters. Why waste extra materials, time, money and flooring height?
The sticky underlayment they mention is Elasticon, good but expensive product and 9 times out of 10 not needed for a normal room and normal circumstances.

Hope this helps
(we have over 10 years experience in installing floating floors - solid and engineered both in The Netherlands and UK)

 

[Rubberball]

thanks for the reply and apologies for my ignorance. i'll take your word about the flooring.

 

[WoodYouLike]

thanks for the reply and apologies for my ignorance. i'll take your word about the flooring.

Sorry, didn't mean to make it sound as if you are ignorant, F2G are (well , mostly)

 

[andyboyo]

I bought my floor from F2G and I bought a silicone type floor adhesive called "bruce" .

it cost £108 a tub and i needed 2 for 16Sq Metres!

I had to get mysub floor as level as i could using levelling compound and I give it a brush over with some diluted PVA to seal and get rid of dust cos the glue was a b%tch to work with a 5mm notch trowel.

I recommed heating it up ! on the second day had left it next to a hot rad over night and it was much more workable so it went further!

I layed the first 3 rows got them perfect and clamped them up over night , the rest went down easy and it was a success

 

[Bayard]

Hi, I'm converting the first floor of a barn attached to my house into a flat. The downstairs will be part of the house, therefore, I am told, the floor will have to be an acoustic floor to comply with building regs. I would like to use underfloor heating and, to make things more complicated, I have a headroom problem with the existing roof trusses that prevents me raising the floor too much. After much googling I've come up with the idea of using a 20mm chipboard floor floating on acoustic strips fixed to the top of the existing floor joists, with a 15mm engineered floor on top, also floating. Is this a viable solution? Can you use 20mm flooring grade t&g chipboard as a floating floor?

Sorry, I appear to have unwittingly hijacked this thread - I thought I was starting a new topic. Please disregard this post.

 

[WFRN]

Before installing check what installation methods the manufacturer recommends.

1) Engineered wood is not more waterproof (due to the number of layers it is more stable than solid wood and so expands and contracts less than solid).

2) Ask manufacturers solid wood is normally recommended to be nailed.

3) For Engineered floors use polythene DPM under underlay. For solid this depends how the manufacturer recommends installation. If you can float a solid use polythene, if gluing down you will have to use the recommended adhesive and chemical DPM (very expensive option). With battens use sisalkraft moistop over the battens (bitumen backed building paper).

4) Get a pro to install it - when it comes to solid wood it wil be worth it unless you are a very handy DIYer.

5) I prefer nails, with gluing ask the floor manufacturer about this method and only use the recommended adhesive, do not ask an adhesive manufactuer they don't gurantee the floor!

6) Both can be sanded and sealed a number of times and if some care is given will see the kids grow. 30years for a decent engineered is common and lifetime for solid.

7) Price varies in regions but approx £10 - £20 per square metre for engineered and £20 plus for solid (for decent professionals).

more advice visit www.*******************

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[WoodYouLike]

4) Get a pro to install it - when it comes to solid wood it wil be worth it unless you are a very handy DIYer.

Go for quality products, installing T&G wooden flooring (be it solid or proper wood-eningeered) isn't rocket science, but quality makes light of any work