Oak flooring

[chris lewis joinery]

Hi guys
I have an oak floor to lay in a few weeks and was wondering on the best fixing method.The flooring is solid oak made by ELKA I will use the secret nail machine but should I also glue it to the 18mm chipboard sub floor or glue the tongues together.Cheers in advance for any comments.Chris

 

[G S Haydon]

FWIW I would add some glue but not to the tongues or grooves. There are proper flooring adhesives but PU would be OK. Hope you don't get any squeaks/creaks with that chipboard.

 

[chris lewis joinery]

The chipboard has been glued and screwed down to 8x2 joists at 300mm centres so I don't think it will squeak

 

[G S Haydon]

More the nails from the oak through the chip board in to the oak below.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

You glued the chipboard down? ...You want to hope it's not you that has to get under the floor for any reason.

 

[G S Haydon]

I would of glued it too. Anything to stop the squeaks ;-)

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I used Tongue-tite screws, no glue. No need for special tools, just a cordless drill. Does not squeak.

 

[PhilM]

+1 for Tongue-tite screws & cordless drill. I laid 18 mm T&G oak over building paper onto existing floorboarding. Glued end joints only, as generally advised, & also predrilled all holes, probably unnecessarily.

A year later, joints still tight, no squeaking.

 

[chris lewis joinery]

Hi
So would you recommend the tongue title screws over the porta nailer

 

[speed]

You can't nail to chipboard as the nails don't hold so a full stick down using the correct adhesive, you may need to overply for the adhesive to stick to, im unsure of the bond strength from the glue onto pf chipboard, you will need to get manafactures instructions or elka tongue title screws is the only way to go, I've used th screws before and I'd use them again

Don't need to glue the t&g when using the screws, or the nails if nailing into ply/ timber floorboards

Another option is to get engineered and float it