Old Engineered flooring - how do you lay it?

[owsnap]

Got myself a bit of a random bargain, 21m2 of really good quality 20mm engineered oak flooring, for £100, cheaper than the cheapest laminate out there
However.. I suspect that this thing has been left somewhere in storage for very very very long time, because the packaging & build of the flooring itself looks a bit ancient.

It has got just a finger joint and it must be pushed together rather hard for it to stay there+ the fact that it has sat somewhere for very long time doesn't help it either as some of the joints will need some attention due to some movement in wood.
The joint is like this one:

So my questions are:
-is there any special technique when laying such flooring? Do you need to fill the joints out with pva and glue it together?
-how large expansion gaps you must leave at the ends, the same 5-6mm you leave for laminate?
-and what kind of waste percentage is there when laying such flooring? I have laid A lot of laminate floorings before and I get maybe only 2-3% wastage , the thing is I need to cover 20.5m2 of area with it and I only got 21m2 of it,that's all the guy had So will need to work really carefully.


maybe anyone recognizes such markings and do know the approx age of it as well?
Thanks.

 

[Woodchips2]

I used PVA adhesive with a similar floating floor in a hallway but I allowed 10mm expansion gap around the edges. It was down for about 5 years with no problems and then we moved house.

Regards Keith

 

[owsnap]

I used PVA adhesive with a similar floating floor in a hallway but I allowed 10mm expansion gap around the edges. It was down for about 5 years with no problems and then we moved house.

Regards Keith

cool, how much do you need to use the pva? just a bit in few places so it sticks together or you must flood it and glue it together?

 

[Woodchips2]

I used a continuous bead of adhesive in the groove.
Regards Keith

 

[Alexfn]

its tongue and groove, its unlikely its ancient tongue and groove is still the best in a lot of cases,

first of all what is your subfloor?

second never glue a floor with pva especially floating.. eventually the glue will fail with the stress on the joins and the floor will make a loud cracking noise

i own a specialist hardwood flooring company

 

[n0legs]

Use a D4 grade PVA and try to keep the application really even along the groove. If you apply too much you'll find it difficult to close the joint, you will have learned how much is too much by the time you start the third row.
I always kept the glue bottle in a small bucket of very hot water, this "thinned" the glue down and made application real easy.

Before Kahrs brought out the Woodloc system and Quick Step was really the laminate others tried to follow, most of the wooden floors were glued together. Boen Parkett, Wicanders, Bruce, Karelia etc etc, all glued together floating flooring.

 

[owsnap]

its tongue and groove, its unlikely its ancient tongue and groove is still the best in a lot of cases,

first of all what is your subfloor?

second never glue a floor with pva especially floating.. eventually the glue will fail with the stress on the joins and the floor will make a loud cracking noise

i own a specialist hardwood flooring company

never thought about the glue failing =D> soo... do you use anything than to fix and hold them together? Because I'm 100% positive that it won't stay put just by itself since there are no locking mechanism.

the subfloor is made from floorboards (well old pallet boards I got for nothing to be exact ).

btw what's the most decent underlay for this kind of flooring ( my main priorities are sound reduction and leveling qualities as my current floor isn't the best there is)
I have 3 options
-sonic gold stuff ( but is it like the cheapo 2-3mm white foam which is crap but just a bit thicker or it's a decent stuff? )
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/30m2-Deal-Son ... SwEeFVMUqC

-XPS stuff (fairly sure I have used similar product and it was nice)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/29-3m2-3-Pack ... SwymxVMUn4

-Fibreboard stuff (have never used it before)
http://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Premium- ... y/p/215589

thanks.

 

[owsnap]

Well fuuuuuuk me.. thanks to some other forum I found out what is the maker of the flooring and the make/model and it's not that old and still for sale.
Kersaint Cobb , ''just'' £60 per sqm.... oh lawd..
So seems like I have bought £1300 worth of flooring for £100 without even knowing it myself.
http://www.ukflooringonline.co.uk/produ ... ered-20mm/

 

[rafezetter]

Well fuuuuuuk me.. thanks to some other forum I found out what is the maker of the flooring and the make/model and it's not that old and still for sale.
Kersaint Cobb , ''just'' £60 per sqm.... oh lawd..
So seems like I have bought £1300 worth of flooring for £100 without even knowing it myself.
http://www.ukflooringonline.co.uk/produ ... ered-20mm/

That sounds like a win to me ! A quick google to confirm what I've seen on TV - many wood flooring companies recommend secret nailing to a wood sub base instead of gluing for solid wood flooring, this includes the "solid" made up of layers.

They also advise to acclimitise the flooring to the room for as long as you can with expansion gap around the edge of approx 3-4mm per metre width laid for oak. We had a post on here a year or two ago where this wasn't done for various reasons and huge gaps opened up once it had acclimitised.

hth.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I had a 27' long floor with boards (solid, not engineered) running crosswise, and I beefed up the skirtings on the ends of the room to about 1 1/4" so the expansion gap could be much larger. I was glad of it. Depending on where you are, your climate is worth thinking about - where I am if I lay flooring in the height of summer it will shrink in the winter, and vice versa.

 

[Alexfn]

nail it down, dont use underlay, it will add to the chance of it squeaking, run it apposing to the way you have the current flooring running,

hire a flooring cleat nailer and use tongue tite screws to start the first row and finish the last few

 

[skipdiver]

nail it down, dont use underlay, it will add to the chance of it squeaking, run it apposing to the way you have the current flooring running,

hire a flooring cleat nailer and use tongue tite screws to start the first row and finish the last few

+1

 

[scholar]

This is what I intend to use on an upcoming project - recommended by the flooring supplier https://www.sika.com/dms/getdocument.ge ... system.pdf

Would be good if you could try it out and report back!

Cheers

 

[owsnap]

This is what I intend to use on an upcoming project - recommended by the flooring supplier https://www.sika.com/dms/getdocument.ge ... system.pdf

Would be good if you could try it out and report back!

Cheers

cheers mate, however at 2 times what my whole flooring cost I think I rather not

 

[vally bar]

You need a Porta nailer,