• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
Top Tips for Installing Your Wood Flooring
Preparing your wood flooring properly is well worth doing. It will save you a lot of work and frustration inthe long run. Here we lay down the common pitfalls and top tips to help you avoid them!
Moisture: Check before you lay!
Moisture is the number one cause of problems when it comes to installing
wood flooring
. With this inmind it need not be, take the proper procedure to handle it and it will not be a problem. The problem isthat a lot of flooring installers do not take this into consideration.What quite often happens is that wood flooring is delivered straight to the job site in the winter. Theflooring came from a reputable supplier and the wood was stored in a climate-controlled warehouse.After arriving at the job site delays happen and the wood ends up sitting around for a while. Notknowing the affects on solid wood flooring the temperature is increased by the heating in the building.The flooring is fitted and everything is fine, the next winter the customer rings to say that the flooringhas gaps between the boards.The cause of the problem is that the flooring acclimated to the conditions of winter when it first arrived,when it then acclimated to the hot summer humidity it swelled up and the edges of the board wasdamaged, the next winter the swelling reduced and the gaps were much larger than they should be.
Moisture: Prevention
The best way to avoid this happening is to install the flooring when the moisture content is at a goodmedium, between the two seasons. The other way to solve the problem would be to not nail the flooringas tight as you normally would and leave “washer rows” to allow some swelling in the winter monthswithout damaging the flooring.
•
Make sure any controllable moisture affective work on the house has been completed such asinstallation of windows and doors.
•
Measure the temperature at the job site. It should be at what is considered as normal livingconditions.
•
Make sure that gutters are in place and correctly installed so that all water drainage is going togo away from the house and not to the foundations as this will increase the moisture.
•
Use a good moisture retarder for your wood flooring. If moisture is of real concern to you anengineered wood flooring may be of better suit to you as it is a lot more tolerant to heat andmoisture changes.1
 
Moisture: Prepare the Subfloor 
Subfloors should be clean, flat and dry. Not doing so can lead to many problems with the flooring itsself. These problems can be seen as loose flooring, squeaky joints, deflection and uneven surface.The dry part of the Subfloor equations come from the moisture content in the air as discussed in theearlier point “check moisture”. The clean part means that all debris and general dirt from the work sitemust be clean and cleared away from the subfloor and also that anything that may interfere with theadhesive that is going to be used with the flooring is cleaned off. The floor must be flat to industrystandards, subfloors that are not flat enough should be flattened before the flooring is installed. Manyproblems stem from using an inappropriate sub floor for the flooring used, it is crucial to get this rightthe first time!
Room Layout: Take the time to plan
The main aim of this point is to get across that you should not jump straight into the job and start layingthe wood flooring straight away. Take the time to plan out the job exactly.While it may work for some to just start laying the flooring straight away it can cause major cosmeticproblems. As you move from room to room angles can change as rooms are never perfectly square thisleads to crooked flooring spreading through the rooms, a slight change in angle from the required 90can have major consequences leading trouble for the fitters having to trim down flooring and asmentioned earlier the cosmetics of the flooring will be harmed.
Bad Racking
There are many many mistakes that are commonly made when racking flooring here are somecommon mistakes that are commonly made.
•
End joints being too close together is one of them, the ends of the boards should be at leastthree times the width of the flooring apart.
•
H-Joints happen when end rows line up with one row between them.
•
Lightning Bolts/Stairsteps are joints that happen in the flooring in even steps for a number of neighboring planks. This often happens when flooring is supplied in even lengths.A common mistake to make when racking is not to look at the bigger picture of how the floor is panningout and likely to look when it is finished in the current state. This does not just mean the problemsdescribed above but it also means observing the wood that is getting laid, for example light and darkplanks, after all wood flooring is not going to be perfectly the same since its wood, but who would wantit to be anyway.Since variations can happen between packs it is often a good idea to open up a few packs before yourack and use them at the same time using planks from each box to get some variation.2
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...