I’m fitting solid okay flooring in an upstairs bedroom onto a chipboard floor. I’ve fitted it downstairs but I used adhesive which worked well but is quite expensive and messy.

I’ve had a look on realoakfloors.co.uk and they have a self adhesive underlay that you lay then stick the floor.to. An underlay would be good as it would add some sound insulation but the site also says solid wood floor should be glued directly to the sub surface.

I’m confused.

Hire yourself a nailer (one that sits on the tongue: You bash it with a mallet and it secret nails in a T nail into subfloor at 45deg; no underlay req), by far the easiest and best way of fixing down solid timber flooring!
Self adhesive underlay??? how are you going to tap the boards together?

Solid woods need to be fixed, unless it’s engineered 3 ply? If not do as Mr Chickenman said!

The wood sticks to the underlay according to the realoakfloors website.

I’ve used the self adhesive undelay. It’s hard work.

What’s hard about it wors?

I’ve used it once at work when it came out a few years back. Admittedly it was on a vertical surface for a display, but trying to get everything in tight and lined up was a bugger.

It has a layer of film on it to peel back after you put the wood down, could do with another set of hands whilst dooing it to make sure everything is right.

Our joiner who we fitted the floor with said the membrane is an RS as the floor needs to move a bit so nailing was the way to go. We got the solid oak from Carpenters Of York, £20 / sqm. Bought 70 sqm and delivered for fifty quid to Edinburgh.

Been looking at this too, apparently you’re supposed to line up the wood get it tight etc on top of the adhesive backing sheet – you then peal/pull the sheet out from under the wood whilst holding it in place. See the fitting instructions here

I spoke to the bloke at the place I will be ordering our solid oak flooring from on Friday and he said that as long as I use the ‘strong’ variety then he has no objections to me using it. By the way I’m thinking of using it since I can get a moisture barrier under it (I’m not very confident in the DPM in the concrete floor) and I can’t have the extra height that lining the floor with 18mm of marine ply would add

Is it Elastilon Gary_M?

It true STW style I did not read your post properly, if I had a wood sub-floor then I’d nail it.

It’s envoy deadlydarcy, this stuff. Looks the same as elastilon

The problem with nailing is that there are a couple of pipe runs under the floor, what length are the nails?

First things first, decide how important it is that you don’t get any sound transfer on this floor. Will you be simultaneously yomping around on it while someone else is underneath in need of silence? If it’s really that important, then yeah, by all means, use the underlay – I’m not a fan myself – I don’t like the idea of “floating” floors in general. I get the feeling an extra pair of hands might be needed to keep the boards tight as you peel back the membrane. Also, again, I don’t like the idea of PVAed end joints. All in all, yeah, nice system but I get the feeling (and from what I hear), it’s not as simple as they make out in the videos.

If the sound transfer is that important, then there’s a system called Acoubond by Sika which while pricey would work for you and you still get adhesion to the sub-floor. You can also fire the odd nail here and there if needed 😉

It’s easy for me to be saying, spend this and spend that…but the floor will be down years…so an extra hundred now will be only a few quid a year when you think about it.

Well it’s our 13 year old sons room and its above the kitchen so some sound installation would be good. That acoubond looks ideal, Given I’d either need to buy the adhesive or underlay anyway then the cost isn’t that different.

I don’t like the idea of PVAed end joints

Do you mean you don’t recommend pva on the tongue and groove joins?

I don’t like the idea of PVAed end joints

If it is solid wood then glueing the joins will mean it may split else where on the planks with seasonal movement.

engineered the no issues .

The floor should be tight enough without having to glue the end joints – but yes, less of a problem with engineered than solid.

Nails go right through chipboard? No 50mm nails at 45deg will not go through 22mm chipboard (assuming oak is 18mm).