I know I'm using an underlay rather than glue now, but obviously the underlay isn't fastened down to anything. Whats to stop it (or sections of it) moving around under the floor and taking sections of the floor with it??
After or during installation? After: the weight of the floor and the furniture will keep everything in place - during: just take care the first few rows, after that it is extremely hard to move things around
Additionally, there is a slight step out to the patio which takes 2 rows of 2 of the longer floorboards perfectly. This is about 5mm higher than the rest of the floor. Obviously using underlay on this area will be pointless, as 4 planks really won't provide the weight to hold it all in place (I'd be able to pick it up!), so how would you deal with this?? Level it and create lots more work for yourself? What about expansion gaps?
Can you glue it down there? Leave expansion gaps all around the same way as you do everywhere else. You can use a (custom) L-profile to cover the front of the step - pin the L to the wood on the step
OK will give gluing a shot! What kind of glue is it I'd use, and can I get it in smallish quantities from B&Q or somewhere similar for stuff like this? As I've sent the large vats of £80 a tub glue we got with the floor back...
Now to a creative question.... These are the rooms I'm flooring:
As you can see its fairly long. I'm also exntending the flooring through the gap (which is now a door) into the study. All in all about 40m^2. I'd been advised it would be normal to run the floor length ways, but because of the length of the room I'm worried that it'll look quite stark and featureless. I was thinking of putitng a width ways row in every 2 meters or so, and perhaps run a width way row at each end of the room, and through the door to break it up and create a pattern.
If it weren't for the T&G's on your wood strips I would say you can do whatever you like as pattern.
Best thing to do really is to have a 'dry' run and see how going length ways does look. Remember your strips all have their own character (and length as I understood it) to prevent a normal design (length ways) looking boring.
I've opened a couple of boxes, and there appear to be 3 lengths of wood in there, rather than them all being random, so it might lend itself to something! However you are right - they do have character and look like they'll make a fantastic floor!
Have you considered 'Liquid Battens'? I have just laid an engineered oak floor on a concrete sub-floor that had the horrible bitumen residue and was slightly uneven. It was totally impracticable to remove all the black stuff to the point where I could install a self leveller.
I then used Elka Trade Flex and laid lines of liquid battens for the boards to sit on. This is similar to a number of other products such as SIKA T2. It comes in 600ml 'Sausages' and uses an inexpensive Sausage gun!! (Similar to this: http://www.russwood.co.uk/flooring/accessories/images/Liquid-Battens.jpg)
This method has the advantage that it doesn't require a totally flat sub-floor and doesn't need the whole floor to be cleaned of bitumen.
I have had the floor down for nearly 2 months now and I'm very pleased. It is totally solid and feels lovely to walk on. I suspect it makes slightly more noise than a full stick down when walked on but it not bad at all.
Of course the real test will be the floor condition after a year or so.
I will post some pics and more detail if anyone is interested?
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