hardwood flooring installation methods?

I will be installing some Australian Cypress 5/8" prefinished, semi-engineered (planks are a 2 boards wide and 6' long lamination) solid wood flooring in my kitchen in the near future. Hardwood is typically nailed, but I understand that there are now glues available suitable for this purpose.

Now, the questions.

Pros and cons of gluing vs nailing?

Altrenatives not mentioned above?

Any tips or tricks that y'all wish to share?

Should I buy a manual nailer or rent a pneumatic one (flooring will cover about 200 sq ft)?

Thanx Renata

Reply to
Renata
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I suggest you take a look at this video. We installed and finished two rooms recently, and the two videos (he also has one on finishing) helped up immensely.

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Reply to
jimg

I glued down a bamboo floor on a concrete slab in my house in Florida. The glue was about $1/sq ft, so it's not cheap. This particular glue was especially expensive because it had to form the vapor barrier as well as hold the floor down. It worked great and I loved the finished result, but if I'd had the option of nailing, I would have done that.

Some reasons:

It's often much easier to cut oddly shaped pieces (i.e. around doorways) when the adjacent pieces are already in place. Gluing makes this difficult because you only have a short time to get the pieces in place once the glue is applied. You pretty much have to have everything cut just right before putting the glue down. Also, it's much easier to cut the oddly shaped pieces using trial and error. Once the glue is down, you don't have the option of putting the piece in place, then removing and recutting it. It's all covered with glue and you don't want it anywhere near your saw.

Also, the glue gets in your way. If you lay down the glue for four or five courses, you have to reach over it and not put your hands or elbows or knees or feet or forehead in it. It makes for a sore back (not that nailing will improve that situation much). By the time I finished I had glue all through my arm and leg hair. That was pleasant to remove.

The glue smells terrible, and is harmful to breathe. Even with a respirator, you have to have adequate ventilation. If you're in a cold climate, you don't want to do this in the winter.

If you ever have to repair a piece of the floor, it's much easier to take out a piece that was nailed than a piece which is glued. The glue I used will pull up concrete with it if you try to take it off. I'm sure it would do the same to a plywood subfloor.

If you're interested in seeing my results check out the pictures at this link:

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Josh

Reply to
Josh

Nice job Josh!

Reply to
lwhaley

Got an error when I clicked on this.

Server Error in '/' Application. Runtime Error Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.

Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "Off".

Notes: The current error page you are seeing can be replaced by a custom error page by modifying the "defaultRedirect" attribute of the application's configuration tag to point to a custom error page URL.

Is it me or something else? The suggestion for creating tags on the local machine, etc is something I've never encountered with a web page error. What - they think we're all programmers ;-) ?

Renata

Reply to
Renata

Thanx a bunch!

The repair part was kinda hovering in the back of my mind, not quite making it to actual thought and that's the key.

Since it's going over a standard subfloor, nailing it is.

Thanx for the responses.

Renata

Reply to
Renata

BTW - if there's a fix, or alternative, I'm definitely interested in viewing.

Thanx Renata

Reply to
Renata

Hmm. The link works for me. If is still isn't working try clicking right, then copy shortcut. Paste that into the address bar of your browser. And if that don't work, try googling for Don Bollinger Laying Hardwood Floors. There's both a book and companion video.

HTH

Reply to
jimg

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