Solid wood floor on top of floorboards

[JustMe]

Hi,

This weekend I'm fitting some solid wood flooring on to existing floorboards in my downstairs corridor. The existing floorboards are the same age as the house (100 years), 160mm wide, tongue and groove fit, on the ground floor, on joists, above an open basement.

The new floor consists of 18mm thick, 85mm wide pieces of varnished oak, in a few different lengths. It too is a tongue and groove fit.

According to the instructions for the new wood floor, it's OK to fit these directly on top of the existing floorboards (without an underlay) using a secret nailer as the sole fixing, under these circumstances.

The existing floorboards are sound - they don't creak, they don't move and they are level. My only concern is that they run in the same direction as I wish to lay the new wooden floor strips (along the length of the corridor).

I'm assuming that, what with both the existing floorboards and the new floor being tongue & groove, and using the secret nail fitting, I will get away without having to insert an extra layer of boarding. I want to avoid this as I'm already pushing my luck with the extra height of the new floor.

Does my logic seem reasonable or am I going to get in to trouble?

My plan is:

1) Peel up old lino currently covering the floorboards. 2) Remove old skirting board and door frames & architraves on all sides 3) Ensure floor surface is even and no nails/screws sticking out 4) Route telephone & CAT6 cables into a channel in the wall, behind skirting board 5) Lay new floor edge to edge 6) Refit new skirting, door frames & architraves on top of new floor.

Is there anything else I need to look out for?

As always, thanks in advance for your advice.

[dom]

Sounds a good plan. I agree your hallway seems to be an exception to the rule about laying the new boards at 90 degrees to the old. Have you considered hiring one of those specialist trimsaws to undecut the skirting/doors etc. in place rather than remove it all? How will you fix the level changes between hallway/rooms leading off from it?

[Lobster]

I don't see why you don't simply rip up the old floorboards??

David

[The Medway Handyman]

Leave an expansion gap.

[JustMe]

Yup - under the skirting should take care of that.

[JustMe]

Too much mess and consequential work involved.

[JustMe]

I want to replace the door cases anyway, as the previous owner fitted them wonkily on both the horizontal and the verticals. The architraves were prised off by an electrician to hide wires and were badly damaged in the process, before being bodgily refitted. The skirting's OK but the finish of a freshly painted new run alongside the new floor should make for a worthwhile improvement, without losing any period details (managed to find a match). There's one bit of skirting that goes around a round pillar, that was cut curved out of a solid piece of wood - it's really thick and heavy and quite a piece of work, so I've been careful to prise it off intact and I'm getting that dipped and stripped for replacement, the rest can go.

There will be a slight level change between the lounge/dining room floor and the hallway, the rest is unaffected. I've got some level-compensating door strips which claim to be good for up to 18mm. The lounge/dining room are carpet with quite thick underlay and when I experimented with it using a block of the wood and a piece of the carpet and underlay left over, it seemed tolerable.

The hardest thing so far has been figuring out a sensible pattern/degree of randomness for the blocks of wood and deciding the right start and end points for a good, even layout.