Hi – looking a putting in a oak floor. 35 sqm in total, not sure to gor for solid or engineered. Will be sitting on top of underlay on a new chipboard floor.

£40/sqm is probably our max

Can you recommend me a online or high street retailer?

Thanks

What’s your location ?

Oak trees.

Bristol.

[tannoy] Calling deadly [tannoy]
However Fitchett and Wollacot if anywhere near Nottingham?

Birbek.com

Hell – why do all these replies seam so cryptic?

Are you fitting it yourself Earl?

No – don’t have the ability. But the builder in the house at the moment is a very good carpenter.

Why?

Try Gardiner Haskins in central Bristol
Darcy will fit it for you!

Gardiner Haskins – completely forgot about them. Will give them a look.

Is there some weird ‘darcy’ based in-joke going on?

Most of the stuff I fit is a good bit more expensive than £40/sqm. I think you’ll have to go Internet shopping. Go for engineered if possible. Your builder should have an idea of what’s around for that kind of money too though. And don’t float it on underlay. It can be glued to chipboard with a combination of either secret nailing and/or tongue-tite screws.

Earl, sorry, I’m a hardwood flooring fitter, also based in Brizzle.

Darcy – thanks very much for your advice. I think £40 is my very max – sorry I cant use your services.

Will ask my builder. He has the week off and I just decided last night. The £5/sqm laminate sitting the corner look unappealing.

Can I fix the oak flooring to the chipboard but still use underlay? The floor is going in the ff and there are bedrooms beneath so I want to tyr to minimize noise.

G-H have some very decent flooring in at £35/m2 at the moment, some solid, some engineered. Down from about £50/m2

Oh, I’ll fit anything. I’m a bit busy at the moment though. It’s just that the suppliers I fit for tend to be supplying more expensive stuff. Is it a flat then?

Fitted 70sqm of engineered oak flooring for a customer a few weeks ago, they got it from B & Q.

They paid aprox £1100 for the floor boards fibre underlay and solid oak skirting.

Considering Howdens wanted £2300 for just the flooring I think it was a good deal, and tbh it was better stuff than Howdens gave me as a sample.

I wouldn’t advise using carpet underlay if that’s what you are planing to do, its to soft and the joints can get damaged over time. Had to take a floor up that someone had fitted like this and refit as the joints broke up in places.

No a 2up/2down Victorian but in our case the ‘up’ is the kitchen/dining/living room and the beds are on the ground. All open plan so a nice wood floor with long planks would look amazing or overkill (not exactly sure)

I’ve already purchase some good 3mm underlay i was going to use laminate. Its pretty dense/firm/heavy stuff.

Will have a look ath b&Q as well but their online stuff doesn’t look so good.

dd, why do you say go for engineered? In fact, what’s the difference between solid wood and engineered?

I’ve got 70sqm of floor where we were going to put down solid wood. The plan was to buy it from a big seller and then employ a local fitter to put it down for us.

I think I know the stuff you mean. Green?

You can secret nail it through underlay, but the joints can end up a bit bouncy. How about some flexible adhesive? Sika T54 or Bona R850? Or an MS polymer, which is a bit cheaper? This would give you a cushion between the floor And the chipboard. I’m guessing it’s a bit late to be pulling the chipboard up to put some sound insulation in?

Tbh, insulating sound from wooden floors is a bit of a ‘mare if you ask me. Just don’t wear shoes upstairs. That’ll keep everything a bit quieter. 😀

@samuri:

The advantages are numerous.

More stable – minimal expansion/contraction. Meaning frames around eg. fireplaces can be fitted much more closely.
Nearly always machined to a much higher tolerance. So all boards will be the same width, no tailing off at board-ends, no stupid gaps where there shouldn’t be.
Easier to cut.
Sits flatter on the sub-floor (less bowed)
And most importantly, less susceptible to relative humidity of the house atmosphere (probably the main reason for cupping and dishing of boards).
And lots more.

It feels a bit sacrilegious saying it sometimes, but if I never had to fit a solid wood floor again, I wouldn’t be in tr slightest bothered. 😐

Got plenty of sound insulation below the chipboard – but even in bunny slippers i’m like a elephant on rollerskates. From a sound point of view, vinyl is the answer but even the vinyl I cant bring myself to use in entire room.

It’s a bit late for us now (I’ve literally just finished laying the last bit) but what are the advantages/disadvantages of fixing an engineered floor to the sub floor?

Our floor’s not fixed to the chipboard.. this was controversial at the time it seemed…

thanks

Earl – my Aunt and Uncle (in-law) run a flooring company in Bristol. Give them a call:

Chaunceys Timber Flooring

You’ll be lucky to find anything under £40/sqm at Chaunceys.

Slight hijack but if you’re laying engineered flooring on to concrete what type of underlay should you use?

You shouldn’t use underlay. Unless its a laminate or a click together 12-15mm product.

You should apply a two part liquid DPM (unless you’ve checked the moisture content of the concrete, properly). Then use a flexible adhesive: MS Polymer (£), Bona R850 (££) or Sika T54 (£££). My personal choice is Bona R850. For my reasons not to float, check through my history, nealglover asked the same question some weeks ago on another flooring thread, which I answered.

Engineered oak from Howdens dents very easily. TBH, if you have small children, I’d think about a different type of floor covering.

Darcy – I haven’t checked but assuming I do what figure or reading would mean I would not have to use liquid DPM? It’s a new build house that has been unoccupied for ~2-3 years.

Just checked Chaunceys – nothign under £45/sqm

Also been reading about ‘hand scraped’ style aka worn/aged finish might be more suitable if there are young kids about. i.e. it already looks ruined! Like buying a 2nd hand bike so I don’t have to get my new one dirty.

I got solid oak from Floors2Go for £18/m, incidentally. But I doubt they still have it.. apparently there was a glut of cheap oak back then because a lot of it blew down in France.

Nooooooo. Don’t go for hand scraped. Earl, I’ve seen something at my suppliers for just under £40, but there’d be VAT on top. 😐

EDIT: think you can get a brushed finish on it. Which is a nice texture. The “hand scraped” stuff has a load of wavy grooves on it. Looks a bit weird if you ask me. 🙂