Oak floor

[Useroftheforce]

I want to install an oak floor in the ground floor of my terrace house. It's a 2 up 2 down style thing. The floor area is 40m squared. The existing floor is the original joist and board arrangement. There is a small area or wood worm in one board. The boards are worn commensurate with their 100 or so years of age. In other words it appears to me, that sanding them would not provide an acceptable finish without repairs. There are massive air bricks front and back of the house, that ventilate the existing floor. So I am not thinking of removing the existing boards - because of the extra insulation that they will provide. (Although not raising the floor would be nice).

I don't have any real experience except having laid a large glued cork floor and a sprung pine floor before. I am planning to buy solid 120 or 150mm oiled timbers, T&G and fit them. I am replacing the doors architrave and skirting as well.

Questions:

1. What books can I buy to ensure that I make a good job of it?
2. Should I consider removing the existing floor and replace it with 18mm far eastern ply before laying? Discuss….
3. With the pine floor I sprung it quite heavily to allow for contraction, but I have picked up that is not the correct technique to use for oak, what is the correct way to interface between the floor edge and the walls?

4. Chicken and egg – I don’t know enough to ask the right questions, so what questions should I be asking  ?

Thanks very much.

 

[WoodYouLike]

If your floorboards are in good nick and you are sure the woodworm is not 'live' any longer (have you checked the joists on infection?) you could consider installing directly over them. Depending on their direction and the planned direction of the new boards you might need to overboard with ply - if you want the new ones in the same direction or if your existing boards are cupped, use at least 6mm ply.

Remove skirtingboards and architraves before the installation and undercut the door posts to make sure you have plenty of expansion gaps there too.

It depends on your personal preferences which installation method you want to use, both floating (on foam underlayment without DPM) or nailing is suitable.

If you want, you can also remove existing floorboards and place at least 18mm plywood (exterior grade) as subfloor.

As for how wide your expansion gaps should be, read this:
Gaps! They are there for a very good reason!

As for books....

 

[Useroftheforce]

Thanks for those answers - conveniently the light falls across the existing boards so the new boards will lay directly on the old ones.

I am going to purchase a wood moisture tester and see what the existing floor lives at. I presume if it's vastly different than the new wood when it's delivered I'll need to allow the new timber to rest for a while before I fit it?

Having read that Gaps link - I wonder where I can purchase the required infill peices for round the two fireplaces?

I had planned to use the lost head screws that are now available to install the floor wich it basically "nailing".

What does floating mean?
Is that something to do with engineering boards?

 

[NicG2]

Useroftheforce,

I think you have misunderstood WYL's 'directly'. If you want the new boards to go in the same direction as the existing ones you will have to ply, if you want to go without ply you will have to lay the new ones perpendicular to the existing ones.

Floating is where you do not glue or nail to floor down to the subfloor but glue the tongue and grooves together, the weight stops any movement (except expansion, which will always happen however you lay it).

I would advice looking at WYL's site, many (and I mean many) on here have used the information available on it.

 

[Useroftheforce]

I realise re-reading that it wasn't too clear - I did mean that I can place the new boards perpendicular to the old boards. Which is great.

Why do people choose a floating floor method as you describe over one that it fixed to a subfloor?

 

[mac391]

Floating floors came about fairly recently as a way of installing a new floor over concrete that was contaminated with old adhesive, to save having to remove the contamination or apply expensive membranes etc. The method has now transpired to be "ok" on original wooden sub-floors which i disagree with and always will !!

If you are confident about nailing down, then thats the way it should be done. You will have a noise/squeak free floor that should last a lifetime. The correct method would be to use a hand held nailer such as a "portanailer" available from most hire shops.

You will have a constant expansion/contraction going on throughout winter & summer with any type of installation but by floating, some of the boards will eventually seperate and cause you problems. Apart from that, you will have a floor that moves when walked on and sounds hollow!!

All you need is a semi permeable building paper called novia as an underlayment if you are laying perpendicular to your original boards. www.novia.co.uk, it costs £1 per/m2.

If there is woodworm present i wouldn't hesitate to treat the whole floor including joists. it might look dormant but it also migrates. Again, all materials for this are available at most hire shops relatively cheaply.

The money you save on "not" buying a DPM underlay for a floating method will pay for your nailer hire..

As for resting (acclimatising) the floor, i don't believe this is necessary so no need to buy a wood moisture tester, just install it. All manufactureres will insist on acclimatisation to honour any worthless guarantee but if you acclimatise in the wrong conditions you could have problems installing it and afterwards. just install it in normal houshold conditions.

Lost head screws ?? never used them so can't advise there..

Good luck

 

[WoodYouLike]

I am going to purchase a wood moisture tester and see what the existing floor lives at. I presume if it's vastly different than the new wood when it's delivered I'll need to allow the new timber to rest for a while before I fit it?

Having read that Gaps link - I wonder where I can purchase the required infill peices for round the two fireplaces?

I had planned to use the lost head screws that are now available to install the floor wich it basically "nailing".

Pine boards - your existing floorboards - are allowed a higher moist content than oak boards (15% versus 8-11%), so there might always be a difference between new and "old" but more to due different "material".

Depending on where your new wood is coming from (reputable company or Ebay?) it can take between 5 days up to 5 weeks (and longer) to acclimatise.

In our honest opinion screwing a floor is "screwing" your floor. wood works, no matter which installation method you use. Screws - again in our opinion - restrict this movement too much and can cause splitting of the wood (we've seen it).

Edges for around fireplace depend on what is higher: floor or fireplace. If fireplace higher, you can use a simple flat beading in front of it (which is pinned down into the wood floor), if the fireplace is lower you can use an End-threshold.

And whatever you do, don't use any DPM between existing and new boards!

 

[WoodYouLike]

Floating floors came about fairly recently as a way of installing a new floor over concrete that was contaminated with old adhesive, to save having to remove the contamination or apply expensive membranes etc. The method has now transpired to be "ok" on original wooden sub-floors which i disagree with and always will !!

Hmm, perhaps in your experience it came about for that reason, but where we come from "floating" installations have been normal since the 80's. It started with the introduction of quality wood-engineered boards and has nothing to do with contaminated concrete.

More and more manufacturers give three options of installation methods nowadays: nailing, glueing and floating for both wood-engineered and solid floorboards.
As long as these methods are executed properly you'll get a good result (where the quality of the product plays an important role, always has and always will).

 

[flooringman]

WYL wrote

More and more manufacturers give three options of installation methods nowadays: nailing, glueing and floating for both wood-engineered and solid floorboards.

That's good to know. On the floating method which manufacturers specifically?

 

[WoodYouLike]

That's good to know. On the floating method which manufacturers specifically?

Too many to mention really Most of the manufacturers who produce long lengths (so the "cheap offers" in boxes 300 -1200mm should not be installed floating!)

 

[flooringman]

Well mention half a dozen or so then.

 

[WoodYouLike]

Inpa, Hak, Havwoods, Tradewoods, Boen etc etc etc.

As long as you know what you're doing, when you make the proper preparations and do not install improper products in improper circumstances you can't really go wrong.

Any installation method executed correctly with the right materials should give you the best results, miracles won't happen.

 

[Useroftheforce]

Further to the post before - now I have the carpet up (for the plastering work) I notice that a long time ago there would have been a partition wall about three feet from one of the walls. The relevance of this data is that there is a 4" wide concrete foundation that is about 5ft long from the exterior wall that is flush with the existing floor boards and perpendicular to them. In other words running the same direction as the new floor boards I want to install.

Obviously this will be different environment to the other boards for the new floor to lie on and will, I am sure, cause a problem without the correct technique.

Techniques that spring to mind: I could smash it out a little and lay some 18mm exterior grade plywood to provide a buffer?

 

[Useroftheforce]

I have a picture of my problem where the subfloor is not level. I want to lay the new floor perpendicular to the old floor.

The floor to the right of the concrete is 10mm higher than the floor to the left of the concrete. This will create a weakness in the boards joining at that point. The boards are 85mm wide.

The photo doesn't really show it.



I was wondering what the recommended action would be here?
The best solution I guess would be to move the supporting joist, on the right, down the supporting wall 10mm - but that is allot of work and perhaps a packer under the left side would be the answer?