Hi Folks,

I’m an ex-professional. long gone from the business. Materials, methods and tools have evolved considerably since I last did any flooring work or wrote any specifications.

I used to install t&g strip flooring flush with tile at kitchens, bathrooms and entries: no expansion space at all, just wood sanded and urethaned hard against a clean portland grout line. I did this with all sorts of species (d. fir, yellow pine, oak, maple, Idaho pine, etc.) in all sorts of widths, with flooring run parallel or perpendicular (or diagonal) to the tile. Sometimes I ran border strips tongue and grooved or biscuited into the field flooring. Sometimes I left out the paper underlayment and glued the last course or two before making the transition (along with the usual nailing pattern). All floors were nailed over plywood subfloors over crawlspaces or basements. Of course, I’d leave expansion space at other edges—under baseboards, usually.

I’m wondering about doing this with engineered floors, either floated or glued over gypcrete. Of course the instructions say to always leave expansion space at every transition, but instructions always said that about solid wood too, and I never had a problem leaving out the expansion space in this specific application. My reasoning is the same as always: I don’t like the look of transition strips, be they metal, plastic, wood or vinyl. The t-moldings sold with engineered flooring look particularly offensive to my old-fashioned eye.

So again, the question is: do I really need to leave an expansion space where engineered flooring meets a tiled floor? On a side note if I do need to leave such a space, are there more attractive transition than the usual t-moldings or threshold strips?

Thanks for any and all input. Hope you’re all enjoying springtime, whatever that looks like in wherever you’re at.

Mark