Floorboard buying advice required

[NT0S]

Hi.

Some of you helped me sort out what I was going to do for my new floor.
I wanted an oak floor in one of the rooms in my house, and we were discussing what option was best (solid wood directly to joists, engineered flooring etc)

I decided in the end to go with the solid wood to joist method.
After learning about the length issue with buying oak boards and what I should do instead, I've located a place In my area that cuts them to length.
After emailing them to enquire, they asked what sort of length and width I required.
Telling them the width was obvious, of course, but I don't know what to tell them about what length I need.

While I'm essentially learning on the job, (I've fit an engineered floor but nothing where I'm fitting the boards to the joists directly) I don't know how to answer this question.
When looking at the floor and how it is arranged now, there are multiple different lengths.
Some boards span the entire length of the room, and others are in shorter sections.

Presumably I'll need to know the distance from joist to joist, so should I take a couple of the old boards up and check that first?

Thanks a lot

 

[Phil Pascoe]

See where the the nails are and measure - it's probably 2'. I don't know the size of your room, but you need as near as you can get to multiples of the spacings, otherwise you're buying expensive firewood.

 

[MikeJhn]

If you can go for full length boards, you get consistent colour and grain if it all comes from the same tree (unlikely) but does look much better IMO, than lots of bits, that is unless you like the patchwork look, some do.

According to how old the house is, the spacing of the joists could be 18" as has been suggested look for the nails and measure between them.

Mike

 

[NT0S]

Thank you for your replies.
The distance between the Joists is 32cm. Inwas going to measure the nails but there was a loose board that spanned three of the joists so I just had a look underneath.

The room size is 4x4 meters.

 

[MikeJhn]

Crikey 12.5" between joist, that's a posh house to have joist's that close, the certainly did not want the floor to bounce, seriously that is very unusual to have joist that close together, are you absolutely certain you have that right, is that face to face or centre to centre?

If you can get them 4 meter length boards are available and would make the whole thing go much quicker.

Mike

 

[NT0S]

Crikey 12.5" between joist, that's a posh house to have joist's that close, the certainly did not want the floor to bounce, seriously that is very unusual to have joist that close together, are you absolutely certain you have that right, is that face to face or centre to centre?

If you can get them 4 meter length boards are available and would make the whole thing go much quicker.

Mike

Pretty sure, unless I've done something wrong.
I measured face to face, here's a picture.

I should be able to ask for 4 meter lengths seen as I'm having them cut for me.
Cheers!


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[Doug71]

It looks like an old place, the joist could be 3" thick, if it was 13" between the joist that would make them 16" (400mm) centres which i would say is normal.

Doug

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Or he might be measuring between a joist and a trimmer.

 

[NT0S]

I'm pretty sure I measured between two joists, because looking at our hallway flooring, the nails are about 12" apart right along the whole floor.
It's more difficult to tell where the nails are in this bed room because of the state of the floor.


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