'Floating' hardwood floor, a couple of queries

[usenet]

We're aiming to lay a 'floating' hardwood floor at our flat next week-end. The wood (T&G strips of ParaWood/RubberWood) has been delivered so is acclimatising itself already.

The instructions with the wood seem fairly straightforward except for a couple of things.

1 - It says to start against a long wall with the first strip having its tongue towards the wall. It's very insistent on at least a 12mm gap, which is fine, except that with the tongue sticking out as well there will be 20mm or more to cover with the skirting board which seems rather a lot. Would it not be better simply to remove the tongue on the first strip with a circular saw or router?

2 - For the last strip it implies (but doesn't actually say!) that you cut it to size to leave a 12mm gap again and then "On completion of the last row, fill the gap with cork expansion strip" Does this cork fill the whole 12mm and do you do this only on one side of the room?

[Grunff]

Yes, I'd remove the tongue. A sliding chop saw is by far the nicest tool for this job (and all the board cutting).

I've never used cork strip before. AFAIU you can use cork instead of leaving a gap, but it really is optional - you can just leave a gap instead.

[usenet]

Thanks. The chop saw can't cut along the long edge though can it?

OK, thanks for the reply.

[neil]

I laid a similar floor a while ago. Took the opportunity to replace skirting boards at same time. Then could have most of the expansion gap under the skirting boards, since there was quite a big space between wall and floor (accurate builders!) But ... during last summer, it was rather warm and rather damp (lots of rain) and the floor expanded till we had a nice 3 inch high hump in the middle of the room. Should have made bigger gap. Had to lift skirting, trim floor, widen gap in plaster - what fun. OK now. hth Neil

[The Natural Philosopher]

1/. Yes rip the toungou off, or srat with a groove.

2/. The gaps are generous and designed for worst case: I too had a bubbling in one area - I laid it tight and the summer humidity got it.. lay it in summer and you should be OK. Otherwise over a very large are

6mm was OK.

3/. Instead of cork strip I laid skirting - nice solid wood skirting. Where it was up against prickwork, I used s little flexible mastic to fill the gap.

[usenet]

For some reasone it definitely says to start with a tongue, I can't think of any really good reason for doing so though.

It has to be generous doesn't it as it implies it's OK for up to 10 metres.

Ah, now I think I know what they're on about, the cork is for areas where the gap is visible. We are aiming to remove the old skirting and replace with new so that a 12mm gap will mostly be invisible.

The instructions are a little abbreviated in places.

Thanks for all the help everyone.

[Grunff]

No, you need a table saw for that ;-)

[zymurgy]

Hang on a minute ! I posted an exact query here a couple of weeks ago on wood flooring and I got zero responses. No encouragement, nothing.

Make your own mistakes ... I had to !!!!!

Oh, and I laid groove to wall, as it was easier to get glue in a groove on a loose board than one that was laid.

Much easier.

Cheers

Paul.

[Grunff]

I didn't see it - and just serching through my downloaded articles, it's not there.

[Rob Morley]

When you're knocking the boards together you get two bits of groove to batter instead of one bit of tongue.

[zymurgy]

Exact as in 'specific queries'

But no, Not a sausage

pulling up the carpet, I espied the well fitted 50's vinyl tiles. So whoohoo, only the odd patch of DPC needed !

Cheers

Paul.

[zymurgy]

Not if you use a sacrificial offcut ..

I shall press on. 1/3 done so far. The only bugger is keeping the glued boards together (esp. the warped ones !)

/me rues not buying click-lok !

Cheers

Paul.

[Rob Morley]

Put something heavy on them to keep them flat, pack them tight with wedges temporarily screwed to the floor.

[The Natural Philosopher]

always fit a scrap to the edge you are battering and smash the scrap instead...

[zymurgy]

heh.

No.

Concrete floor. I've used a series of cramps and wedges to keep it all together. The ratchet strap idea was abandoned quite quickly.

It's going well now with a combination of the chop saw and the table saw, but can only lay 4/5 boards at a time with the limited number of clamps I have.

I think next time i'll let the pros lay it and see what they do, rather than try to make the method up myself !

Cheers

Paul.

[usenet]

Well, with the help of the advice here, we completed the floor over the weekend and we're very pleased with the result. It was about 25 square metres, a rectangular lounge area and a lobby.

We took some of the instructions with a pinch of salt to enable us to progress.

We started by lifting the carpet and underlay from one side of the room (having shifted furniture off of course) and commenced laying the floor with the first board's groove towards the wall. As someone suggested this seems to make sense from the gluing point of view as it's easiest to squirt glue into the groove of a board you are about to lay. As it's an old[ish] flat and there are garages below we just put down underlay and a no waterproof membrane on the solid floor.

We made steady progress and moved furniture onto the new floor (very carefully) to enable us to continue. You're not supposed to do this but in the real world of a flat with difficult access to the outside it's the only realistic way to do things without taking weeks.

My SIP twin slider saw did all the cutting admirably apart from the very intricate bits for which I used a jigsaw and the 'along the plank' cuts for which I used my Skil Classic. We (three of us) took most of Saturday and Sunday morning to do the job. We've only laid the floor, not done the skirting boards yet.

The flooring we used is solid 'parawood' from HomeBase which is on offer at about £15 per square metre at the moment. This is (as I understand it) the same as rubberwood, it's wood from 'end of life' rubber trees.

We are very pleased indeed with the result.

[zymurgy]

You lucky bugger ! i'm still going on mine :-(

I've got 34m=B2 to lay, there's about 25 down at the moment, but I got panicky as it looks like i'm gonna run out before the hall's finished :)

Tongue ?

yep.

I did this, but only when the floor had dried for 24hrs.

Grr, I wish !!

Same offer as I took up.

Me too. Hard on the knees though !

Paul.

[Rob Morley]

[usenet]

the floor. :-(