Solid wood flooring, is it really this difficult?!

[anonymous-user]

[redacted]

[Simpo Two]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Ah that's where you're going wrong, you need adhesive

But seriously - is this flooring T&G (tongue and groove), and if so why are they not laying it straight onto underlay, like laminate flooring? What exactly is the problem?

[bennno]

Why are you putting it on battens? It will creak like hell and will be springy.... why not straight on top of a vapour membrane on the concrete floor?

[No ideas for a name]

Are you seriously carrying on with this development whilst you have enforcement action hanging over you?
I hope it works out but I would have thought a pause here until you get the planning issues sorted would be a good plan.

[Flibble]

Normally you would either float the floor on underlay like laminate or glue it down to the subfloor. You can also screw or nail it down but that requires a wooden subfloor. What you have seems to be some weird halfway house with the worst of both worlds.

Also 20 mins a board, what are they cutting it with, their teeth?

[2354519y]

That is not the correct adhesive for solid wood flooring.

You need something akin to Bostik laybond. Lay it down with a trowel and it will aid in levelling the floor as well as providing adhesion.

[2354519y]

[rich350z]

Have they screwed the battens down through the membrane?

Why couldn't they just fit it as a floating floor on the membrane?

[Flibble]

2354519y said:

That is not the correct adhesive for solid wood flooring.

I assume that's for gluing the boards together rather than sticking it down. Though if they're nailing it to battens it shouldn't need that anyway.

These guys seem like amateur hour and are probably going to ruin a load of flooring at the OPs expense.

[guindilias]

Is this still for the same gym/nail salon/yoga building/outhouse/annexe/whateveritis that you were originally building? I'm far from a flooring expert, but you are gluing and pinning a floor to battens on top of your insulation?

[bimsb6]

2354519[/url said:

Thats going to look awesome

[dmsims]

Get rid of them now!

[Darkslider]

That flooring is meant to be laid onto a smooth flat surface. Where did they get the advice to lay it on battens? The only times I've ever heard of it being done are when someone is adamant they want a wooden floor in an apartment or flat, so a 'floating' floor is used to minimise noise transmission to the neighbors below. There's absolutely no need to go to all this effort for this application and I also can't fathom why they're struggling so much. It'd take me about 1 1/2 working days to do a floor that size on my own without pushing myself.

Dare in ask if you've left the boards in the environment to acclimatise for 72 hours before fitting?

[RichB]

This looks like a nightmare! Only 2 weeks ago I had two rooms done by proper carpenters who knew what they were doing. Removed the old skirtings, layed a 3mm underlay, laid the boards (solid oak) which were glued to each other, and then fitted new mdf skirtings. In total 4 days including lifting all the old carpet and underlay. Excellent job.

[Aluminati]

Trampoline floor, will make it easier to change lightbulbs...

[Simpo Two]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Eh? I still don't get it. If you can lay rectangles of laminate, you can lay rectangles of wood. I can do it.

Is it T&G?

[Mr Pointy]

Darkslider said:

Dare in ask if you've left the boards in the environment to acclimatise for 72 hours before fitting?

It should be seven days for solid wood flooring, & slice the packets open so the moisture can move around.

[Darkslider]

Mr Pointy said:

It should be seven days for solid wood flooring, & slice the packets open so the moisture can move around.

Quite right, I missed that it was solid I'd just presumed it was engineered oak.

[Flibble]

Not sure why they are having to carefully cut each board either, it's a rectangular room with nothing in, about as easy as it gets.

I did the upstairs of my house faster than they are doing his room and that has doorways, alcoves and old school not quite straight walls.

[spikeyhead]

Mr Pointy said:

Darkslider said:

Dare in ask if you've left the boards in the environment to acclimatise for 72 hours before fitting?

It should be seven days for solid wood flooring, & slice the packets open so the moisture can move around.

If I remember correctly, it's an unheated outhouse. I can't see this ending well.