real wood floor on top of a solid floor?

Quite right.

You can use thin pressure treated battens - e.g. 12-15mm thick and plug and screw those to the concrete floor. The boards can then be secret nailed to these using a flooring nailer and nailing through the tongues.

You can, but it is not as good a solution unless you buy the proper flooring and substrate material. Have a look at Junckers if you want this type of solution.

.andy

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ok.... is it worth putting any insulation under the planks being as there's a gap?

also, is it ok to use standard pine t&g floor boards from local timer merchant? or what do you recomend?

ta mate

steve

I didn't bother. For one thing, if the house is relatively new there will be some under the concrete anyway. Secondly there should be an air gap under the boards to allow for some amount of ventilation and air movement. If you only have about 15mm to play with, you won't get much insulation in anyway.

You can, although sometimes the quality isn't that good. Also, it is better if there are a couple of grooves machined along the length of the boards underneath to help reduce cupping of them.

If it's going to be a floor that you are going to finish in some way and not cover, then you may well want a better grade. It may then be better to look at a specialist flooring place.

Pine can be a bit difficult to finish without a bit of practice. If you're looking for a lightish colour then you might prefer one of the lighter hardwoods.

.andy

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house is dater circa 1821...so definatly no insulation! i supose the wood itself will be slightly insulating anyway.

what is cupping? ok i will look into higher quality pine boards...i am looking for a darkish brown oak efect. im trying to instill some character in to this old house which previous owners have striped it of!

ta

steve

OK. Then it would be sensible to make the depth a bit more if you can and arrange a damp proof membrane and some proper underfloor ventilation.

If you don't have a problem with the height then you could put in (e.g.) 75mm timbers and 50mm of insulation.

This is where the wood distorts into a curved shape as seen by looking along the end. Generally it is a combination of how it is sawn and the drying (or not) and acclimatisation. It is sensible to acclimatise the wood in the room where it will be used for a few days.

OK. One thing to bear in mind is that it is difficult to achieve this on pine because it has different absorbencies as well as a tendency to cause finishes to change colour over time in the light.

I would buy a few bits first, treat them and leave them for a few weeks and see how they look.

.andy

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How would you use a dpm in this instance then?

If you are fastening the battens to the floor they would go through any membrane or am I missing something? (apart from a dpm). ;-)

Mark S.

Ideally lay a polythene membrane, concrete on top of that and then fix battens.

Less ideally, but probably OK would be to use some Visqueen strips - i.e. material used in DPCs in brick walls and plug and screw through it using stainless steel screws. Not perfect but better than laying timber on unprotected concrete. The wooden battens would be fairly well protected.

.andy

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Thanks.

Just working my options out as I so don't want to go down the new floor route, took the knackered skim off that was an inch or so thick and that took ages.

Worked out that the dpm was the layer of black tar like stuff that was under the skim, nothing else under that but concrete and red shale. :-(

There's a couple of patches of "salt" that's come through the levelling compound so don't want to cover the floor and create a problem at a later date.

Mark S.

A friend just had a quote for real wood flooring & they were going to lay a floating floor directly (resting) on the concrete saying that "the grooves on the bottom of the planks allow for ventilation". Another flooring place said that they would screed the concrete then glue the planks to the floor. Neither sounds great to me but the Junckers site does mention glueing to a subfloor.

No that's rubbish. The purpose of the grooves is to prevent cupping of the boards - it won't ventilate the undersides.

Definitely not.

Yes but with special underlays or subfloors, not wood directly to concrete.

.andy

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Warping from flat into a acucer shaped cross section.

There are no high quality pine boards. Its cheap crap and was used by the victorians the way we use chipboard today. Because it was cheap crap and good enough for the peasants. If in doubt it was always painted to hide its defects. If you were really poor and could not afford rugs, you might work beesawax into it in a vain effeort to make it look half decent.

Real people had floors made of oak, or mahogany. American maple was used for dance floors because its springy.

.i am

Probably never had any in the first place. Why not use dark brown oak then?

Its not necessary that its totally watertight, merely that it lets in water slower than other methods can remove it.

All damp control in a house is about is to keep wood and plaster humdity level below the point at which problems like rot and efflorescence occur: You can do this by drying the air out, or stopping the wet coming in or condensing, or both. Once your drying exceeds your wetting, you are there. neither has to be perfect.

Parquet floors of the 50-'s were just wood blocks glued t concrete. Both my wife's' parents old house and my mothers neighbours house have these, both done circa 1953. Both are in top condition - one is mahogany, the other oak. You need bituminous or modern equivalent flexible adhesives.

These are strong enough to hold down planking of decent quality as well. But I wouldn't lay a pine floor that way (I wouldn't lay a pine floor anyway) because the expansion under high humidity with softwoods is generally very high compared with hardwoods.

The purpose may be that,. but they do represent a small ventilaton space. I have on suspended floors felt draughts coming up through them.

Perfectly possible with Parquet and decent hardwood planks, especially cut quarter grain. Tangentially sawn is not so good.

Traditionally a bituminous mastic was used for parquet.

The grooves are in the middle of the undersides......

Parquet is a different game though. With wood plank floors the area is much larger er plank and you have to be really careful to allow for movement.

Yes but this is small blocks

.andy

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why not indeed...looking at prices now...38per sq know of any cheaper?

steve

you should be able to get 'character' planks about £28 per....

If you are in east anglia try Whippletree Harwoods at - damn. Near Royston anyay. Can't remember. Barley or Barkway or Flint cross.

They do random width T&G in good oak at less than those prices for sure. You do lose a bit cutting out knots if you want it to look more even.

have decided to stick with pine due to the fact that the rest of the house ie the stairs and all of upstairs is pine...and we plan to rip up the carpet and stain and varnish that too!

steve