solid oak floor from scratch is simple & worth the troub

[nicksmith]

Hello,

For flooring - Is is worth getting sawn oak boards, running them through the P/T & T&Ging them myself?

Or is it only slightly more expensive & massively less hassle to by boards that are finished & clip together etc.

It sounds like it should be simple to do a floor from scratch, but there must be some pitfalls. I want to know if people think it would be worthwhile.

(This is over concrete, 3 rooms)

Thanks

Nick

 

[Chris Knight]

Nick,
Buy the flooring, it will cost less and save you tons of work. You have to figure in wastage costs when buying wood you then machine yourself and these are always higher than you first estimate unless very experienced!

 

[jasonB]

If I'm buying 1" european oak, I find it cheaper to buy 22mm finished thickness floor boards and rip the T&G off than buy sawn boards and prepare them.

Get some prices for flooring than work out the costs for sawn boards, wastage, set of planer blades or sharpening costs, T&G cutter. Even without allowing for the amount of time it will be cheaper to buy the flooring ready machined. And you won't have a mountain of shavings to get rid of

Jason

 

[RogerS]

I second (third?) everything the others have said. I went through a similar exercise and came to the conclusion to buy it ready-made.

Tim really knocked it on the head for me when he got me to imagine lifting and feeding all those planks through the thicknesser and planer....time after time after time.....

Depends where you live but I've bought two lots of oak from different places...one down near Bristol T&G'd but needed waxing...but a good small company to deal with... Need to be hidden screwed if you don;t want visible nail holes.

The second lot from Hoebeek via Travis Perkins..already finished and sealed, microwaved to kill any woodworm, comes complete with Clip'n'curse (sorry meant Clip'n'Click) system....until you get the hang of it...

 

[Paul Kierstead]

Note: Canadian experience.

I very recently (as in 2 days ago...) ordered a bunch of oak flooring. In this case, I went to a local small mill, and we had a look at various bits of wood. He has a small-scale 'flooring' machine (a planer which does 4 sides at once) and would mill up any wood for me for a fairly small fee. What I get out of it is:

- long boards (most will be 5'-6' long)
- Wide boards (remains to be seen, but probably 4" or 5")
- knot free
- support of a local
- domestic species
- reasonable price *for what you get*

Now the price is much (about double) what I would see for oak flooring in the local home mart, but theirs would also be quite narrow & short.

 

[RogerS]

Thanks for reminding me, Paul.

Hoebeek was all uniform widths c 6"

The Bristol wood was a mix of 6,7 and 8" boards...rather nice

 

[jasonB]

The boards I buy are 8 - 14 ft long and in widths of 11,9 & 7 inchs, I wouldn't class 5-6ft as long! I can pick through them to get the clearest boards or the most pippy, depending on what I'm after.

Jason

 

[Paul Kierstead]

The boards I buy are 8 - 14 ft long and in widths of 11,9 & 7 inchs, I wouldn't class 5-6ft as long! I can pick through them to get the clearest boards or the most pippy, depending on what I'm after.

Well then, you haven't see flooring here. 2-3' lengths are common, especially in home improvment centers. I could get 8', but they might not be so straight. When processed for flooring commercially, they won't be running 14' through as it won't come out very straight; it isn't like they joint it first. If you do your own flooring, of course you can joint it, etc., but it will be an insane amount of work. They guy who is milling up my floor is using something like 50% wastage, and that is from decent lumber to start. Mind, it is all a matter of price; my floor will come in at about GBP 3.1/sq ft (or about GBP 33.35/sq.m); home improvement oak would be about half that. For lengths over 8' and widths over 6" or so, I would probably have to pay at least 50% more again (or even more).

 

[ColG]

I've used this guy a couple of times for flooring - all I can say is EXCELLENT.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Prime-Grade-O...061540939QQcategoryZ66740QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[Chris Knight]

I see they offer it square edged too - just the job!

 

[filsgreen]

Good morning one and all on this fine sunny morning . Reading through the post I thought it may be a good idea to make projects with the Oak purchased from the french Mill. Please excuse my ignorance if I am thick on this occasion (won't be the first time) but would there be any problems using this?

I went to Terry's timber in Liverpool where they sell Supele PAR at £1.40 for 6"x1" per foot. I trusted the assistant to give me decent timber, unfortunately he gave me rubbish that had snipe and splits running down the middle. I know I should have inspected the wood and I won't make that mistake again. It is also in various thickness so I will have to plane it, pretty pointless getting PAR.

PS. This was my first venture into buying hardwood

 

[Chris Knight]

Quite by chance I went to the Grand Designs exhibition at Excel in London today and saw the French oak company's stuff. It was really very nice indeed!. Their main business nowadays seems to be tiles (there are 3 companies under one umbrella) but the guy on the stand showed me some very nice boards he claimed were typical and yes, they do supply it square-edged.

 

[jasonB]

The oak boards I get are also from France, My supplieralso finds it more cost effective to buy in grean oak beams in the common sizes, 6x6, 7x7 etc from France and just to mill special sizes in his workshop. English oak Direct are just down the road from him and they now have a sister company called not supprisingly French oak Direct :wink:

I select the boards I want so can get good clear ones but they still have a bit of character, this bathroom was done with them.

They don't look bad as flooring either

Jason

 

[nicksmith]

Thank you everybody.

Some very useful places to try there. Lots of time saved by your answers - especially in avoiding machining the timber - nightmare!

Why do people go for a square edge rather than T&G?

How should I put the board on the concrete (I suspect it's fairly flat - it's a new house)?

Nick

 

[RogerS]

Why do people go for a square edge rather than T&G?

I don't know. I went for T&G in both instances...no doubt someone will be along shortly :wink:

How should I put the board on the concrete (I suspect it's fairly flat - it's a new house)?

Nick

If your floor is flat then all you need is a bit of foam...at its' simplest it stops the clacking sound as you walk on the floor and odd bits hit the concrete (since there's always some imperfections in the floor)

I bought some thin QuickStep foam as (a) my floor was bone dry (b) I wasn't bothered about acoustic isolation (c) it was reasonably flat...there are more specialist types of foam from the same supplier.

Define 'reasonably flat'...the flooring suppliers say 1-2mm and I got really paranoid about this...but to be honest you can get away with a lot worse. The killer is lumps sticking up...that really messes things up DAMHIKT! but a cold chisel or SDS drill will sort those out easy enough.

A good chop saw that cuts accurate and consistent 90 degree cuts us a must. A table saw for ripping down the boards that need to fit that last little gap is useful but a circular saw and guide would also work (cutting on top of a sacrificial bit of fibre board or whatever).

Do you already have fitted skirting boards? Ideally remove them. If not then, hire a door trimmer to cut out the space needed to slide the floorboards underneath...you will still need to get one skirting board off of the wall to finish off. A Fein multimaster is a HUGELY useful tool for cutting/trimming architraves around doors etc.

Retro-fitting floorboards can be a real pain in getting a decent looking job done.

 

[engineer one]

certainly agree about the fein multi tool roger, makes surprisingly short
work of so many fiddly jobs, and some blades can even cut through the nails. :lol:

and then finally it gives a great finish for painted surfaces in corners and difficult to reach places. glad i bought mine for finishing of in a kitchen. 8)

paul :wink:

 

[RogerS]

and then finally it gives a great finish for painted surfaces in corners and difficult to reach places. glad i bought mine for finishing of in a kitchen. 8)

paul :wink:

Which blade do you use for this? I think I'm missing a trick here :wink:

Roger

 

[engineer one]

roger,
if you check the catalogue, the e series are i am sure what i use,
since they are the ones designed to work nearer the bottom of
an architrave etc.

i am not saying you should cut nails with them, rather that when you
are cutting something will nails in it, you will not lose all the teeth.

will check further and revert.

also have you tried the gold coloured metal cutters they work well.
and the other thing is have you got the latest star type fitting which
stops the blades moving around with the vibration???

what really blows me away is the way in which it sands without appearing
to move.

pm me if you want more data, although i don't work for them.
paul :wink:

 

[-David-]

I have just laid some pre finished American Oak T&G all round. Very quick, easy, no hassle and almost no wastage.

David

 

[engineer one]

roger having checked, they do something called a bi metal blade which it is said will also cut metal, as well as plastic. not sure i want to try them
on girders, but finish nails,or even skirting nails no real problem. :lol:

as with all fein stuff the pack seems a bit dear, but they do last quite a while.

paul :wink: