Expansion Gap On The Tongue Side

[Courtyboy]

I'm sure I'm being thick here, but, just about to lay my floor (solid oak tongue and groove). Instructions say leave expansion gap of 12mm to 14mm.

If I leave 12 mm between the tongue and the skirting, then the quarant/beading doesn't quite reach the board surface leaving a bit of a gap. I suppose I could cut of the tongue on these boards but that sounds a bit of hassle. What's the normal approach?

Thanks for help in advance.

 

[gregers]

cut the tongue or spin the board round and start from the grooved side.

 

[mattysupra]

the correct way is to centralize the room. So you may be cutting the plank in half etc.

Or if your lazy then just chop the tongue off or spin the plank around.

 

[WoodYouLike]

Let's start with the width of your room. If it is wider than 3 meters you will have to have at least 14mm gap, no matter what the instruction say and no matter if your quadrants fit or not.
See here for Solid Floors - what to note

 

[Courtyboy]

I'm doing a few rooms. The widest being 3.73. I'm not going to do the rooms contiguous as it's quite a lot of flloor space, and will add up expansion gap wise. So will but dividers at the doors. I've deliberated about this a lot as it would look much better if it flows between the rooms, but would rather 'reset' the expansion gap accumulater. BTW if you were doing this would you do all the rooms with the same direction? Or stick to the lenths along longest wall rule?

It seems to make sense to start with the groover against the first corner, making the tongue ends and sides the ones that get cut.

My largest room is 7.62 long. What is the rule of thumb for expansion gap on the length please?

Thanks again for the advice - your advice will save me screwing up a lot of wood.

 

[WoodYouLike]

We normally teat every rooms as a separate 'entity' and place dividers/thresholds in door ways. A 3.73 wide room needs at least 14mm gaps if you are installing solid Oak boards - always determine the width of the gap from the width of the room: wood expands more side ways and doesn't tend to 'grow' in the length.
Your other rooms could need a different width of expansion gap. (Perhaps an alternative for quadrants would be flat beading, we use them all the times and our clients prefer them over scotias and quandrants once they see them).

As for direction of the boards per room. There are some 'rules' but they are not really set in stone. We mostly go 'with the light' which shows off the floor (the character of the wood and grain) better but it that means making the room 'too wide' we still go parallel with the longest wall.

Again, you can treat every room separate regards the direction if you like - it's all down to what 'looks' best, keeping "rules" mentioned above in mind.

 

[Courtyboy]

Great help. Thanks very much. The divider thing has been niggling me as I felt I was doing the 'poor mans job' of it, so good to know that the professional approach. Will look at the flat beeding - sounds good.

Right - I've put it off long enough....better get started.

Thanks again. I'm sure I will be back asking questions in minutes.