Laying a hardwood strip floor on concrete - advice needed

[graduate_owner]

Hi everyone, but this time especially to builders who may be reading because I need some advice.
I have a concrete floor with dpm and insulation underneath and I want to lay a wood finish. The wood is about 4" wide random lengths of reclaimed maple and is t+g along it's length. The underside however, is not flat - it has a groove about 2" wide and 1/4" deep along it's length.
So my question is, what is the best way to lay this? Should I put foam sheet first as for laminate floors, or should I lay the maple straight onto the concrete?
Should it be laid loose or glued to the concrete, and if gluing is best, what glue should I use?

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.

Many thanks,

K

 

[gregmcateer]

K,

Although I am no expert, I have just bought solid engineered oak floor and the installation instructions are to use a good quality foam underlay, with the T&G glued. Leave a 10mm+ expansion gap around the edge.

HTH

Greg

 

[Chippygeoff]

I have laid the same sort of flooring on fixed 2 x 1 battens and used tightbond glue and secret nailing and the flooring was random lengths of oak, it was laid in a very large room and when finished the house owner was over the moon.

 

[RogerS]

My (admittedly limited) experience is that to lay boards onto foam underlay requires some form of machined fixing that keeps the boards together as a unit. Usually this is only in engineered boards where sometimes there is a metal clip that keeps them together. Or you can use that sticky underlay that you peel back the protective layer and then lay down the boards....but IIRC these also have t&g or similar to keep the joints level.

In the absence of any of this, I would be inclined to fix battens directly to the concrete as has been suggested by chiipygeoff.

But if you do that you have to bear in mind any difference in floor level at the door thresholds.

 

[hanser]

K
I'm guessing that you've got a load of random length Canadian Maple strip floor. I laid some in a couple of rooms a few years back. I laid it on 2 x2 battens at 12 inch centres and secret nailed it. You can hire the nailer from HSS/equivalent. Its tough stuff and it needs fixing it to keep straight and tight as you lay it. I didn't bother with margins as I had the timber in the house for a year before I got round to laying it.

It make a lovely wood floor with a light airy feel about it. I spent ages denailing, scraping the dirt/varnish from around the tongues, sorting into lengths and then running them through an industrial drum sander. Well worth the effort in terms of ease of laying and finish.

 

[Lons]

Hi K
I'm a builder though I think it's probably flooring guys you want advice from.

I have however over the years fitted dozens of hardwood floors for customers, all T&G oak and in various widths, some of the floors were very large areas and one building was the whole ground floor with 4 rooms each 6m x 12m and 3 steps down to each.

In that time only 2 of the floors were glued, 1 was pinned to an existing chipboard floor and the rest were laid as floating floor on self adhesive foam. All were well received and I've never had a callback for faults.

The foam is by far my prefered method as it gives a slightly "softer" feel to the floor, allows the boards some flexibility and once you've got the hang of it is very quick and without the fumes of glue. It also only raises the height by only a few mm as opposed to the batten method. There is however no room for error as the adhesive on the underlay sticks like the proverbial :lol: (don't ask how I know).

Personal choice and just my opinion but hope it helps

Bob

 

[graduate_owner]

Thanks everyone.
Hanser is right, it is reclaimed Canadian maple from an office block apparently. I too spent ages removing nails, plus they had glued carpet to the wood, so I spent ages again scraping the stuff off. Then I put the whole lot through a thicknesser to clean it up, by which time it was looking good. It only needed a whisker taking off. That was about 10 years ago (!!) and since then I have treated it with wood preservative and stored it temporarily (!!) in my workshop. I'm thinking it's time to get round to fixing it in place as both myself and my wife are fed up of the current temporary floor covering of carpet offcuts.

I can't use battens because of the height increase, in fact just the wood strips are going to pose a few issues. So I think the self adhesive foam method suggested by Lons may be the way to go, although I've never heard of that stuff before.
So, Lons, can you tell me briefly how to go about it? Is there a trade name for it, and where can I get it - is it the sort of stuff local builders merchants would stock, or is it a specialist item? Is the foam adhesive on both sides or just on one surface? And what do you do, besides panic, if you get things wrong - can the planks be persuaded loose from the adhesive? What happens then - do you have to cut away the damaged foam and re-lay new?

Questions, questions, questions. Still, I suppose that is what the forum is all about.

Once again, thanks everyone for taking the time to reply.

K

 

[tsb]

Try looking at this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh67mHaWGIA. regarding the self adhesive form

 

[graduate_owner]

Hi TSB,
Since my last posting I've been trawling the web for info, and have found a few youtube videos, but I hadn't found the one you suggested, so again thanks for that. I've also seen a few reviews on a B&Q site, one very positive and 2 rubbishing the stuff. However I'm going to give it a go - after watching the videos in detail. Next job is to bring the maple into the house for a month or so.

My wife will be so pleased when it's done.

K

 

[Lons]

Thanks everyone.
Hanser is right, it is reclaimed Canadian maple from an office block apparently. I too spent ages removing nails, plus they had glued carpet to the wood, so I spent ages again scraping the stuff off. Then I put the whole lot through a thicknesser to clean it up, by which time it was looking good. It only needed a whisker taking off. That was about 10 years ago (!!) and since then I have treated it with wood preservative and stored it temporarily (!!) in my workshop. I'm thinking it's time to get round to fixing it in place as both myself and my wife are fed up of the current temporary floor covering of carpet offcuts.

I can't use battens because of the height increase, in fact just the wood strips are going to pose a few issues. So I think the self adhesive foam method suggested by Lons may be the way to go, although I've never heard of that stuff before.
So, Lons, can you tell me briefly how to go about it? Is there a trade name for it, and where can I get it - is it the sort of stuff local builders merchants would stock, or is it a specialist item? Is the foam adhesive on both sides or just on one surface? And what do you do, besides panic, if you get things wrong - can the planks be persuaded loose from the adhesive? What happens then - do you have to cut away the damaged foam and re-lay new?

Questions, questions, questions. Still, I suppose that is what the forum is all about.

Once again, thanks everyone for taking the time to reply.

K

Adhesive on one side only, to fix the timber which is why it's classed as a floating floor.

First 2 or 3 rows are the most difficult as they have to be right then you just pull back the clear plastic film only just past those, feed in the next strip, press down and pull the film futher to fix. I use laminate flooring strap clamps to pull tight as I go.

If you get it wrong you'll have to cut it out and scrape the stuff off the timber. It's a bug*er to get off as it really is a strong adhesive (sticks to your fingers as well so be careful). Keep the offcuts btw as it's very useful for lining boxes and all sorts of other stuff.

It isn't cheap either but shop around. I've used the B&Q stuff without problem as well as other sources. Screwfix sell one with a vapour barrier.
http://www.screwfix.com/p/acoustalay-25 ... 3-3m/76517 and if you google "self adhesive underlay for wooden floors" you'll find a number of suppliers.

If you want a small sample to play with, pm me your address and I'll post a bit.

Bob

 

[Lons]

That was about 10 years ago (!!) and since then I have treated it with wood preservative and stored it temporarily (!!) in my workshop.K

:lol: I did that a long time ago. Scrounged some oak block flooring that was 1 1/4" thick and had been laid in pitch. Took me a couple of years to get around to cleaning it up then another one to thickness it and groove all the sides to accept loose tongues. I then put it into storage, told my wife it needed seasoning and finally laid it some 5 years later.
I still daren't tell her that the oak was over 100 years old and dry as a bone :wink:

Bob

 

[graduate_owner]

I have some wood flooring blocks to lay too, but that's not happening yet. They are pitch pine and they also were laid in pitch. What a job to clean !! I am going to try using a floor scabbler (another ebay purchase), which is hand held and about 8" wide. I was thinking to clamp a number of blocks together upside down and go over them in one batch (say about 16 - 20 at a time) with the scabbler and a vacuum cleaner attached to the outlet. That should give me a consistent base instead of the lumpy mess that is there now. Then they will need the 'good' surface cleaning to get the years of polish removed. I tried a hot air gun for this but the polish melted and turned into something like soft chewing gum. Sanding isn't so good either because the polish clogs the paper. I think the scabbler will be too fierce for the top surface (tungsten carbide chisel-tyoe blades) so I'm not sure about this yet. I was thinking to clamp two side by side and about 5 blocks long onto a ply base, then run them through the thicknesser on a fine cut.
Finally there's 100 years worth of dirt on the sides and edges to clean off. THEN I'll have nice blocks to put in my lounge, and the cheap fake laminate can go.

But first it's the maple strips for the hallway - that'll be enough for this year.

K

 

[sawdust1]

Years ago i brought 500 reclaimed oak flooring blocks to do our living room. Tar one side , varnish dirt the lot really anyway over the years i must have moved the pile about 4 times and got so fed up with them getting in the way i set fire to the lot, by heck did they burn well, cost me around £300

 

[hanser]

Graduate_owner

Know what you mean about reclaiming block flooring. I did a room with mahogany block flooring that in its previous life was the dance floor at the Basford Miners social club. What a job getting the pitch of the backs etc -back of the chisel job one by one I'm afraid. It took me weeks. The only consolation was that I found the blocks in herringbone pattern easier to lay than the strip maple. Probably not what you wanted to read.

Good luck with your floor.

 

[n0legs]

:shock:

 

[graduate_owner]

Hi Nolegs,
does that sikkabond method result in a noisy floor, or is there no real difference between that and foam? I was just wondering about the benefits of the 3mm thickness of foam.

Also, does anyone know if the adhesive foam method will 'take up' imperfections in the concrete floor - ours is not brilliant and has a layer of floor levelling compound on it. The 2" concrete screed was a bit grot - the builders wanted coarse sand and what was delivered seemed to result in a weak screed. Of course we didn't know at the time that it was going to be weak - perhaps the builders did and that's why they put the self levelling stuff on. Anyhow the floor is not perfect, so I was hoping the foam would help. Otherwise I suppose it'll have to be underlay and carpet, and sell off the maple. (or use the maple in the lounge and burn the pitch pine blocks, as sawdust1 did).

Interesting that laying blocks was easier than strip floor - I was thinking blocks would be quite difficult to lay exactly right, and wasn't looking forward to it at all, which is one reason they are still in bags, uncleaned.

K

 

[Shrubby]

I've laid oak t+g boards with glue like Sikaflex and the concrete had to be primed with epoxy first. Any bowed or sprung boards were difficult to lay because clamping would buckle the boards already laid. The adhesive bead was supposed to be 10mm thick to take up discrepancies in the subfloor.
The methods weren't my choice but it looks good 5 years on with heavy country use - Muddy kids, dogs, wood stove blasting away etc
Matt

 

[n0legs]

:!:

 

[hanser]

"Interesting that laying blocks was easier than strip floor"

I laid the blocks on a grotty pine floor using Wickes panel adhesive from a cartridge gun. Easy peasy with no bowed or sprung boards to deal with. Lay the first herringbone, nudge them to the line and then all the rest follow on. Mind you it was a bathroom, the window was closed and the solvent from the adhesive was heady to say the least :shock:

Never had any problems with the block floor.

 

[Berncarpenter]

Thought i would add my experience .Laid a floor in a barn conversion in 08 ,the client supplied the materials oak t&g boards stuck down to the screed floor using Rewmar ms polymer.The adhesive is laid on with a notched trowel like floor tilling.Had really good results with this product.Called back earlier this year to do some work on an extension and the floor is still looking good.Just been out to the workshop to find an empty tub for the makers name and address for you.
Rewmar
MS Polymer
Marton Lane
Birdinbury
CV23 8EH

I can't remember the name of the floor company that supplied the stuff but i think they were from down your way Llandovery

Cheers Bern.