Salvaged Laminate Flooring Project Questions

I was blessed with some pks of Unifloor Auto clic 7mm Laminate Flooring made from 90% Wood Fibers. It's made in Austria, says it's Certified E1, Quickstyle.

It was going to be installed in a basement, but there was an accidental house-fire. (No one was hurt, Everyone and Pets got out, and it was fully insured.) The fire was primarily on the 2nd story with some on the main floor. The basement was subsequently "moistened" as the Fire Dept as they tried to put out the fire, on the upper floors, with their hoses. (Was it just water or Heavy Water? IDK) A complication was that there was a gas line issue and the fire kept reigniting. Thus the house could not be saved.

In the basement Two cross windows were "left open" to the air and there was both freezing and warming before I was able to get in and pull the packages out. They were sitting on the "frozen" carpet in two stacks. When I got inside, the carpet fibers rose out of the ice, but I have no idea of how deep the water got, or how much evaporated away in our dry, windy Alberta weather. Most of the main floor and 2nd floor windows were broken, so there was much airing of the place so that there appeared to be no visible or smell-able mould/mildew on the main or basement levels. I have a seriously good nose. I smell it on bread the day before it appears.

The place just smelled of smoke. There was snow on the ground but really not any visible inside, even in the totally open to the south, side of the family room, and it was also without a significant portion of the room's ceiling as the whole master bathroom above, roof and more, had burned away.

I put them, in a "frozen" state, of -17 degrees C, out on my semi covered/sheltered deck that faces southwest. However a chinook hit and by morning they were thawed. I was too busy and didn't even realize it was coming. Oh well. So I decided to remove the "soggy" packaging figuring the dry wind would do what it could to dry them out. I had also salvaged some baseboard and thus, put them on these to give some more air circulation. I just put each pkg on two parallel baseboards running kind of south to north because of how the deck space is. The point is that the wind could not directly swoop underneath because it comes from a more north west direction, so is somewhat slowed. Not sure if it's important, but I'm told to be detailed.

They seem to be fine; flat, without any warping or swelling, unlike the particle board shelves also removed.

Anyway several weeks later I've managed to get some Gorilla Rack Steel Shelving Units built and was going to store flooring on them, till I can deal with the job. The shelves are 34 inches wide and I'm told they hold 1000 lbs per unit of

5 shelves. I gather that to be 200 lbs per shelf. I weighed a pkg and it was 32 or 35 lbs. I can't remember, but let's go with 35 lbs. Thus even 4 pkgs would only be 140 lbs and should be "safe" on each shelf. Yeah? I decided the shelves were too short, only 34 in wide, and the planks, 54 5/16 ths, would stick out 10 in either side, if I wanted them to be balanced. I put the two Units end to end, (Thus is a little over 68 in with the slight gap where they can't quite touch side ends.), making sure they were level in my sub-terrain basement walkout area. It is covered with a deck and also in a Plasticized Garage like tent that opens on the lee side. There are retaining walls 3 ft 8 in on the short and long sides with openings at ground level that rise 4 ft 2 in to the deck bottom.. The other long side is the house. It's very dry in there. despite just having softener salt bags filled with gravel around the perimeter, holding the pole base plates and making a "sandbag" berm around the three enclosed side bottoms, on the inside of the "tent" sidewalls.

To balance the load on the shelves, and for support, I put them staggered on each shelf so that the are are gathered alternately on one short end to one long side in tower stacks of 3 pkgs only to each shelf. NOT centered on either the long side or short side.

I'm not 100% happy with this set up, and am not sure how to adjust. I could get two more shelving units and put them 4 deep, as the that would give me the closest matching length of 56 inches. But that takes up a lot of room, takes time to build and adds level challenges on the uneven ( very slightly sloped v shaped floor with 1/4 in groove, for the "Drainage' channel the runs into the out door sump collecting tank, decommissioned for the winter, bottom cement base. Or I could take every thing off move them to two parallel units and halve the planks per shelf to about 15, which would be aprox. 52.5 lbs per shelf.

I'm trying to keep them from warping in the only space currently available. Or from damaging the shelf by bow it under it's weight as the stacks end about a foot from the end of the second unit. Recall that these stack are uniform in shape but have staggered placements by each shelf. It's very dry in my outdoor store room, I've never had any critter water issues despite the leaky deck, and partial out door exposure the "tent". I've been storing many things, including clothes, books, magazines, in and out of cardboard boxes. I seen only a bit of cobwebs in the corners, some leaves and dirt on the floor, but otherwise just a normal really good store room result. No evidence of mice at all. yes I clean it and reorganize it yearly.

I want to use them in my 3 car Garage attic, as flooring for a storage room in the long corridor that I have up there between the sloping edges of the roof. I don?t really care what they look like or that they might smell smokey. The garage has heated floors, and had drywall put up, taped, mudded and some sanding done. The attic is unheated with just a plywood roof under the soon to be replaced with something else cedar shakes. There is currently blown in insulation but I?m wanting to change it to make it into a storage area. Suggestions as what to use and how to do this? I was thinking to pre-drill holes in the laminate and screw each piece onto the joists as I lay them down perpendicular. How do I determine how much weight the joists can bear? I thought that a row of shelving down each outer edge might be ok, but can I also put one down the center? Is there a formula to use to tell? I can?t currently measure the garage attic. As the tall ladder is not available right now, and I need it to get in.

Where do I go to get some kind of a stairway (system ?), to it? Book suggestions, or trustworthy Reno Co.s in the Calgary Area would be very much appreciated.

I value any input or suggestions that would help me successfully pull this project off to completion. Money is not currently very available for this, and I do not have enough storage space, so I also want to use the house attic but do not want this flooring in the house attic. I?m 5 ft 4 so I fit easily upright in the attics. I?m somewhat handy, but always want an experienced lead to guide me and give me the regulations and suggestions to do things as close to the Mike Holmes way, as possible. I hope to do this later next spring, before it gets too hot up there. I also suspect I need more ventilation and wouldn?t mind making the area subject to less extreme temp fluctuations if possible.

In an other thread a comment was made how these products are often shipped overseas and stored on the journey on docks, ships, in ware-houses etc, with little concern for humidity and extreme temp changes. So for my purposes I think they should work well enough in the garage attic.

Reply to
Cynthia
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*Blah* *Blah* *Blah* Damn, what a novel.
Reply to
ItsJoanNotJoann

Yeah, put me to sleep too.

Reply to
trader_4

ItsJoanNotJoann posted for all of us...

I lost interest after the word "fire". How old is the tale?

Reply to
Tekkie®

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