solid wood flooring

thetourist

am about to tackle a solid wood flooring job - am confident of working with wood but never did a floor before - am concerned as to how much wood to buy - the floor area is 22sqyrds but what is the story with offcuts at the edges - is there a typical extra percentage that one would normally allow for timber which is removed and cant be reused somewhere else in the floor - or do you have to work it out exactly - i was thinking of just getting an extra 2 sqyards but is this enough - anyone experienced out there might be able to suggest - also i dont want to buy too much because its expensive

also the room is underfloor heating - and the heating company say to glue it down - but would the floor not be better off with room to move - i mean if it;s glued down and it wants to expand might it snap or something ???


thanks

Kristok

Im not sure if its the same but ive done many lamanate wood floors and generally you dont need that much over as the best way to lay them is by starting out at one wall lay boards in a line against that wall and using the cut off from the end as the start for the next line. This means you wont have much cut off peices left over if any and it stops the boards splitting at the centre as the boards wont be in rows but rather scattered as each starting peice will be longer or shorter than the last one, if you catch my drift. Id imagine its the same process with real wood flooring.

sas

Recently put down a solid floor in our hall. Carpenter told me to get 10% extra. Local store said the same.

Don't know if this is a rule of thumb but I've heard the 10% thrown around alot of times.

Lex Luthor

I agree...go with an extra 10%.

As for the under floor heating....not too familiar about this. I think what they mean by glue it down, they mean glue the boards together and float it over underlay. This is against the normal procedure for solid wood floor. You normally secret nail it to battens that are either glued or nailed to the floor.

I'm told the only really solid floor you should go with to go with under floor heating is the Junckers clip system. Very expensive though.

Maybe you should think about a semi solid?

thetourist

thanks guys

ps i heard that thing about junkers too - but there is a lot of stuff contrary to that too - im going with the side that says you can glue down a solid no prob because i just cant afford junkers - i hope theyre right - dont really like semi solid cause it doesnt have the chamfor between the individual boards so id go for laminate if anything because IMO they look very similar

thanks again

thetourist

actually i checked and what they mean when they say glue down is actually to glue each board to the concrete slab - not just to each other - all of the shops ive gone to recomend this method with underfloor - and so does the underfloor company - but on a lot of diy websites they say you can only do this with laminate and semi solid - any thoughts

sas

I did come across a solid wood floor range in our local hardware stored that was recommended to be glued down to the floor as you described. I can't remember the name of the range off hand but it was in the 100 Euro per sq ft price bracket so I wasn't terribly interested. If you are interested I can find out though.

I have mentioned this to some carpenters as it was a little strange to me and none of them seem terribly sure that it would work. As was suggested, what happens when the floors expands? Will it loosen itself from the concrete eventually?

Lex Luthor

the only problem I can see with glueing a solid floor is that they can move in & out of the tongue & groove as the glue is setting. General rule of thumb is, put 2 boards side by side with the tongue and groove mated and they should not slide up & down. You shouldn't be able to put them fully together without a bit of force or mallet, if they do, then it will literally take ages to do.
You have to glue a few boards together...then clamp them until the glue sets, move on....etc etc.

Is your under floor heating, under the concrete?

thetourist

yes - it's piped under the concrete

Carpenter

Hi
My job is a carpenter lets get this right from the start 25 years now ?
solid flooring is nailed or clip (no glue)
semi solid is nailed or glue
with under floor heating please use solid any probs phone me 0879113985
i am not looking for work just hate to see people making a balls off things :eek:

thetourist

Carpenter wrote:

Hi
My job is a carpenter lets get this right from the start 25 years now ?
solid flooring is nailed or clip (no glue)
semi solid is nailed or glue
with under floor heating please use solid any probs phone me 0879113985
i am not looking for work just hate to see people making a balls off things :eek:

sounds like you know what you're on about - however !! there seems to be a lot of people saying that you should glue down solid timber when it's on underfloor heating - i asked would the glue not break over time and was told that the glue was so strong that even the concrete would give way first !!!
i think the reason why people arrive at glueing it down is that since you cant nail it to the floor ( because of the pipes ) - the only other options are junkers, float it or glue it

junkers is too expensive for most
if you float it i think you need an underlay ( or risk rattling when you walk ) which could screw up the heat transfer
therefore glueing is the only option left

i want to use solid ideally - what are you saying that i should do about fixing it ?

ps thanks for the professional input - much appreciated

Lex Luthor

Bob,
With Junckers you use underlay and ideally it is the only solid floor recommended for uder floor heating.
I would not recommend glueing a solid wood floor to concrete...that's insane. The floor needs to move and it will end up cracking and splitting all over the place.

You have 2 options:
Junckers or semi solid (floated)

You can get a huge variety of semi solids...is the only reason you want the solid is for the chamfer in the grooves?
Solid is available without the chamfer and I'm sure if you look around you'd find a semi with it also.
It's nothing to do with the fact it's solid, it's just a design feature in the board.

Carpenter

Hi
I am going to the shop where i buy my flooring leave it with me for a bit and i will let you know when you say (glue) i guess you mean glue the edge you can glue the bottom too BUT that gives major brobs with moisture you can always glue down battons onto the original floor then nail down the solid

thetourist

...is the only reason you want the solid is for the chamfer in the grooves?

yes - and i havent found one that has the chamfer between the individual boards - any i have found have the chamfer between sets of three ( which is a dead giveaway ) - so i assumed they didnt exist - but i will get on the phone today

ps - my underfloor guy - who has tons of experience in underfloor - and floor coverings as the two go hand in hand - ( and his business partner has 25 years of experience in this area) told me yesterday - quote " there's NO problem glueing down solid ... "
to be perfectly honest this guy really knows his stuff - surely there is SOME ground to what he ( and a different underfloor heating co ) and half the flooring shops around he are saying ???

ps i also found this stuff - what do people make of it - it's adhesive for bonding all solid timber to concrete - over 100E a tin though

Lex Luthor

Bob, maybe they are all right, but I would have never thought about doing it.

I just got solid wood floor down 4 months ago in 3 rooms and my only option was to secret nail it to battens. I don't have under floor heating but that shouldn't make a difference. It was never suggested to glue it down. We used Gun-O-Prene adhesive to glue the battens to the floor. Boards were then secret nailed to battens. ALready the floor has expanded a good bit and I have noticed movement, so if that was glued to the floor, I can't imagine what would happen. That adhesive though looks like it has some elasticity in it so it could possibly move with the floor.
My boards are all 5" wide and each one has a chamfer on all edges. Place I got them had 3.5" boards also with same chamfer. I got them at a reasonable price so if you're interested in the place, PM me.

Victor

The glue should have near 100% coverage to provide maximum conduction. Iy you have underlays, air gaps, etc. these will act as insulators.

Lex Luthor

Victor wrote:

The glue should have near 100% coverage to provide maximum conduction.

and at €100/tin, it could work out 10 times more for the glue than the wood :eek: