[Closed] laying a solid wood floor

I'm looking at hardwood and engineered hardwood flooring at the moment so I'm 'subscribing' to your thread. I can't offer any qualified advice but one of the chaps I've spoken to at one of various suppliers did say you can't float a hardwood floor, so your glue in the t&g may not work.

*shines a chisel shaped silhouette on the clouds above Bristol*

deadlydarcy is your man for all knowledge wood shaped.

Depends what floor its going over. If its lying on boards and joists then option 3 will be fine, and the least messy. Some engineered floors now have the 'clicklock' option as well which makes it mess free and very quick to lay. And I've got a floating oak floor which is perfect so PB's supplier is talking tosh. Just take the skirting off and recess the boards under the door architraves rather than try to cut it to size, makes it much neater.

It's a solid oak t and g floor going onto a solid bitumen floor if that helps.

glue it in the grooves- wipe the excess glue up as you go

Here I am. Firstly, let's just forget about gluing solid wood along the tongues and grooves and floating it.

*sucks teeth*

Solid floor as in concrete with a layer of bitumen...left over from vinyl tiles? How old is the concrete floor? Is there a DPM?

dd I'm assuming the bitumen is on concrete - the previous owners had carpet down not vinyl tiles. Just curious, why is gluing t an g a big no no? thanks

is it a black bitumen adhesive over concrete or ashphalt

solid oak glued in the t&g will split the wood or pull the joins apart
with seasonal movement
engineered wood is designed for glueing the T&G and floating

it's a black bitumen adhesive over something, but i'm not sure what

johnny_met, bit knackered this evening, but I'll pop back tomorrow with some more info for you. Are you doing it yourself?

Cheers deadly. Yep I'm doing it myself - I'm pretty competent (famous last words!)

ok, no worries, bump the thread up tomorrow and we'll chat some more 🙂

remember to treat it like a woman, lay it right first time and you can walk all over it for the rest of its life!

😀

Just had our kitchen done. Half of it was onto wood (chipboard flooring) and half was onto concrete. Hidden nails for the wood half and glue to the concrete after applying liquid DPM to the concrete half.

Best bet is talk to Darcy though

@ brainflex - that's where I've been going wrong 😉

Bumping for deadly and also to add my own questions into the mix - terribly rude I know 🙂

Firstly, I've had mixed responses to whether engineered is 'better' than solid oak (mostly dependants on what is being punted in a given shop) can anyone advise?

Secondly, of the finishes we've seen, our preference is the oiled or waxed rather than the varnished finishes but will these be hard wearing enough (2 young children and a massive dog)

Appollogies for thread hijack!!

oiled or waxed rather than the varnished finishes but will these be hard wearing enough

Not wishing to steal DD's fire, but Im sure he'll concur (since it was his idea when asked similar)... that Osmo PolyX hardwax oils are extremely hard wearing.
http://www.osmouk.com/osmopolyx.cfm?chapter=29

Have treated an oak staircase with it. Very very high traffic and it looks just like it did when I installed it 9 months ago.

I'd go engineered over solid every time...especially if you're having a go yourself. The machining is much better and the floor is far less susceptible to outside influences...moisture from sub-floor, humidity and temperature differences from above. You're only ever going to sand down as far as the tongue and groove anyway, so if you're thinking of how many re-finishes it'll need (which I guarantee you, you'll never do anyway), what's the difference?

You "can" float an engineered floor if you really want, but it's not the preferred fixing method for me - sorry. I'll always fix to the sub-floor, be it by nailing or gluing.

You should never glue solid floors along the t&g for the correct reasons given by trouty above.

OP, I'd be concerned about the bitumen layer on the floor - and I'd seriously think about paying someone competent to latex the floor for you. Then, you should apply a liquid DPM and you can go ahead and lay your floor whatever way you want. I've never used the self-adhesive underlay - essentially, it's a floating floor which I don't like.

As for finishes, yep, if you want a wax-oil finish, then you can't really beat OS. petrieboy, have a look at Bona finishes (Mega or pref Traffic, if you have a dog) if you fancy a water-based lacquer - they're the best on the market and used by all the pros. I'm afraid, that with a dog, your floor will be marked...an oiled finish will age and distress more naturally though.

Any more questions, fire away, I'm all ears.