Soild wood floor v Semi Solid

Lex Luthor

I would like to get people views on the pros & cons of semi solid floors v solid floors.

We are planning to floor out 40 sq yd downstairs spanning 3 rooms and I've narrowed it down to 2 choices.

One is a semi solid oak finish (14mm boards/3 strip) and the other is a solid oak 5" board 20mm thick. I can get a really good price on the solid floor cos my wife works in the trade, so cost is not an issue. I'm more concerned with the overall height of the floor when down.

The semi solid is a glue system and can be put down on foam and will be floating, so overall height is about 16mm. The solid I was told has to be secret nailed to battens or plywood. I'm guessing about 5-6mm battens but does anybody have any info on this. The most height I think I could go to would be 26/27mm, so the height of the battens is crucial.

Jaden

Typically, Semi solid floors go down on solid concrete finished floors. This means that the floor has been poured over the foundation, and damp course and insulation have been added. This sounds like your situation.

Most Solid floors I've seen are fixed. This means that they are nailed to batons, which take the place of a poured concrete floor. Usually there are two sets of batons, both two inches deep. One layer sits on top of the other at right angles. The batons sit on top of damp course (usually 1000gramme polythene), and have insulation puched in between them.

I have seen solid floors put down on poured concrete, but one are two have given trouble, and you'll have a time convincing a carpenter to do it for you.

Semi solid is your best bet. In the end, the difference is hardly noticeable. In fact, semi solid floors tend to be quieter.

kam3qnwvebf4jh

Had the same dilemma myself a while back, and I had the extra height to play with.
Plumped for the semi-solid in the end as it was cheaper to buy(20e sq yd) and install (15e sq yd) and it looks as good as the solid wood. The only disadvantage is that you cant sand it more than a couple of times(when you're varnishing) without wearing away the solid layer.

If you cant lose the height and choose to lay down the solid planks on concrete, you will find that floor will have no give and actually be uncomfortable to walk on.

bubblymc

just put down 15mm solid floating floor. It's laid on underlay and glued. No need for battons.

Worked out great.

davidoco

I laid 19mm solid pre finished French Pine on solid concrete floor with perfect problems. it looks and feels great. The room receives a lot of sun and still no problems. i also had to join one of the butt ends in with tiles

why?

i laid out the timber (feb/March 01) with normal heating on in stacks and kept turning them for I think about a month. let the air at them.
floor leveller where any imperfections in floor level.
regular foam
I glued every inch of the joints with plenty of glue. ie for the 200 sq ft I think i used 4 or 5 big green bottles. i didn't use any straps but in hindsight they would have saved me a lot of work.
reject any curved boards ie cured on their edge, bowed boards are fine if you can get them glued in.
I took off the skirting board and chiselled off the plaster 25 mm from the floor up the wall back to the original block to give the boards more room to move under the skirting without having the cut showing in the room. If the boards did shrink (unlikely as they were as dry as they were ever going to get) I could have put a timber slip along the skirting. they were more likely to expand and i wanted to give them as much room as possible. I gave at least 15 mm each side of the heating pipes and put those white pipe covers over it (diy store).
On the side where I was joining the tiles I bought window “eye hook hinges” and cut the tip off the female side (threw away the male side) so that I had a hook that I could insert into a drilled hold in the end of the wood and then fix to the floor using hammer in fixings. This is only for the cut ends ie boards run at a 90 degree angle to the tiles. It keeps them perfectly in place without using unsightly cover strips.

I thought I was risking it at the time but I’m very happy with the result.

davidoco

I laid .............with no problems.

I don't know where I got the "perfect" from, I must have been thinking about another diy project.

legend99

David,
Was it that you were tiling over where you had the nail in fittings through the eye hook? I can't picture in my mind what you did??

davidoco

please see this link for a bad picture of the hooks and a drawing to see what I did.

http://uk.f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mediyshots/detail?.tok=phCTQLBB6fVM3Dmn&.dir=/e9f1&.dnm=b764.jpg&.src=ph


The house is let out now so I can't take a picture of the actual floor. When I get a chance I will add a picture to the link.

Remember what I was trying to do was hold the floor board down without restricting it from moving slightly in either direction (top to bottom in drawing)

Lex Luthor

decided to go for the solid (18mm oak) on 3/4" battens. Put my order in yesterday and material delivered next week. Should be going down in the following 2 weeks while I'm away so I'm hoping to come back to it being finished. Biggest problem I had lately was figuring out how to ramp it down to my tiled floor in the kitchen/diner. Sorted now.

Lex Luthor

Floor just down. We got the 18mm solid wood 5" oak planks (various length). They were laid on 12mm plywood battens cut from Plywood 8'x4' sheets and glued to the floor with Gun-O-Prene panel adhesive and the boards secret nailed. Really happy with it.

yop

Good to hear you are happy.

Tell me, they used sheets of ply and cut them, what widths did the cut them too??

So then they just glued the ply to the ground???
And did the put down any underlay??

And then the secret nailed the Solid Floor boards into the ply??

Thanks

Lex Luthor

Originally posted by yop
Good to hear you are happy.

Tell me, they used sheets of ply and cut them, what widths did the cut them too??

So then they just glued the ply to the ground???
And did the put down any underlay??

And then the secret nailed the Solid Floor boards into the ply??

Thanks

The sheets were cut into strips 1-1.5 inches in width.

These strips then glued to the concrete floor using the gun-o-prene panel adhesive.
No underlay was used and not needed.
Boards then secret nailed together on top of ply.
The ply that was used was the waterproof stuff.