Hardwood Floor install: Filling the gap!
Hi all:
I love reading this forum, and know that you all are very helpful. Here’s my question:
I’m installing hardwood flooring at my home. I just finished the dining room, and it looks great! I’m now starting in the living room, but there’s a problem.
Part of the room “bumps out”, and at the transition point in the floor, with a 2″ wide stip of plywood between the two areas. The plywood on one side is 3/16″ higher than the other side.
The flooring will be running parallel to this joint. What do I do to smooth out this transition? I’m thinking that there is some sort of compound that I can trowel over the gap, to make it more of a gradual transition?
Or is there some other way to deal with this sort of thing?
I hope my explanaiton makes sense. I could post a picture, if that’d help.
Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
Replies
Which side is higher? The bump-out or the living room?
It's better to get them to the same level if you can.
Hi All:
Thanks for your responses.
In answer to your questions:
TomC: The Bumpout is higher. We have three bumpouts in the house. This one is on the first floor. There is one in the kitchen that's not bad, and will be fine under ceramic tile. There's another on the first floor, but I think it's negligible. It's under carpeting, and I haven't gotten to that area yet.
There are three others on the second floor that are higher, all about 1/4". These are all under carpeting, so visually not bad. I'll deal with them later!
FastEddie: The 2" strip of plywood is tilted. The bumpout floor is higher than the main floor. I would love to have done as you suggest, and just cover the bumpout with 1/4" plywood. But I'm not sure I want to cover the whole room!
I'm installing 2 1/4" x 3/4" white oak, using a floor stapler to fasten them down.
Mr. JJ: I was thinking of the belt sand/floor compound approach. It's not at the doorway, so the transition strip wouldn't work well, I've never used floor compound. Any suggestions at to type/brand/source?
Thanks again everybody!
Edited 11/5/2005 6:28 pm ET by MelissaMay1
Ok, the bumpout is higher. Is it a big area? Maybe change to a 1/2" engineered material in a contrasting wood for the bump area ... like an accent. paint the walls a different color than the main room too.
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Well, the bumpout doesn't look like one from the inside, so painting different colors, or changing the floor pattern probably wouldn't work. This one is about 5' deep, and as wide as the room, 13'
The bumpout starts at the interior side of each of the baseboard heating units you see on either side.
Here are some pictures.
Edited 11/5/2005 7:08 pm ET by MelissaMay1
Wish you had posted the pictures first. :)
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Wish you had posted the pictures first. :)
Sorry! I had to take time to figure out how to include pictures. And how to compress them so they downloaded faster. And resize them to fit...
Much easier laying hardwood flooring! :)
I assume that's 3/4 ply visible in the picture. What's under it?
The problem with floating out the floor with leveling compound is that it frequently fractures when nails are shot through it. Then it makes noise when you walk on the bvusted patch.
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
I assume that's 3/4 ply visible in the picture. Yes it is. It's nailed and glued to the joists.
What's under it? Nothing but the joists. And the whole rest of the basement :)
[I know, bad joke. But there was a commercial for a Canadian beer on TV some years ago. There was a guy in a beer delivery truck who was stopped by the police. The cop says "What's behind the seat?" The driver says "The whole rest of the truck." I always thought that was a very funny line!]
I see what you mean about the compound fracturing when the staples are driven through it. This would be in a traffic area, being near the door. So I'd hate to have to hear "crunch, crunch" every time we walk through.
I've thought of removing the plywood on the high side, and planing the top of the joists. But I had to remove some of this subfloor in a different part of the house, and with the glue, parts of the plywood split off and stayed on the joists, it was tough to clean up.
I was actually thinking of planing off 3/16" from the bottom of the oak flooring on the bumpout side, and rabbeting the pieces that will land on the transition itself.
What do you think of that?
Edited 11/6/2005 10:37 am ET by MelissaMay1
Is there a window at the bumpout? If so can you see the reflected light on the floor? That would make a difference in how far you have to feather the compound.
3/16 is not much but if you are really anal and depending on how big the area of the bumpout you may want to lower the subfloor. I like JJ's solution of sand and fill which is much more practical.
Hope this helps.
Edit. I was writing this at the same time you were posting the pics. Is the floor outside of the doorway finished? If so you have to plan ahead on how you want to do the feathering.
Edited 11/5/2005 7:29 pm ET by TomC
Is the 2" wide plywood tilted so one side of it is higher than the other? Or is one floor area higher?
IF the bump out area is 3/16" lower than the mai9n floor, here's a solution that will cause angst to many of my brethren. That's just about the actual thickness of 1/4" ply. So glue and staple a piece of 1/4" ply to the low area, and continue to install the finish wood, being sure to use long enough nails to reach through the 1/4" play and through the original subfloor.
You didn't say what kind of wood you're installing. Nail down, glue down, snaplock ...
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
When I run into this, I do one of 2 things.
1. You can use a belt sander to sand it down to as smooth of a transition as possible, and use flooring compound to feather it out better.
2. If it occurs at a doorway or entrance, you could just use a transition strip or a sluter. (looks dumb, but some people like it)
-------------------------------
People are entitled to their own opinions; People are not entitled to their own truth.
Jacob
What's a sluter?
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
A sluter is a transition peice. That's what we call em' up here.-------------------------------
People are entitled to their own opinions; People are not entitled to their own truth.Jacob
Well that sucks
I've had this to deal with before and you really have two choices.
1 Add 1/4" to the lower room and flash patch the joint
2 Grab a few bags of floor leveler a straight edge and feather out about 5 - 6 ft from the mismatch.
Side Note We learned that you can trowel self leveling products if you catch them at the right time. Really makes a better looking job on the feather edge
I suppose the quickest thing would be to put the 1/4" plywood on the rest of the floor.
But I was thinking about planing the bottom of the oak flooring. There's about 60sf that would need to be done.
Trade-off! Buy and install 200sf of plywood, or plane 60sf of flooring!
Decisions, decisions...
Your right. Although a couple of roles of tar paper might work also. If you just want to make a transition rather than a bump. Start six or so feet away an feather the sub-floor with the tar paper. It won't be level, and might not be perfectly flat but it may take the scream out of it. But assuredly 1/4" luan plywood would make the whole thing a non issue.
Hi QS!
That's an idea! So I'd just use however many layers needed to bring it up 3/16", then drop a layer or two at a time as it goes along...
You might just have something there!
I just did an adjoining kitchen/dining area in quarter sawn white oak where the dining area was framed slightly higher (3/4" right at the transition). My clients didn't want me to add 3/4" to the kitchen part with a transition header from the hallway on the other side, so I removed the glued down 3/4" plywood from the dining area. The joists were all over the place so I shot level references on either end, snapped lines, trimmed the tops with a saw, and glued down new plywood. It was a lot of work, but it made a nice solid and flat subfloor to lay the oak on, and the clients were thrilled with the results.
Hi macmillan!
Thanks for the post, and especially for the pictures. It makes me feel a bit "whiny" that I'm trying not to re-do only a 5'x15' area...
I'm with you about leveling and snapping the lines. But what did you use to cut the joists? I'm guessing a circular saw? Didn't the bridging get in the way? Or did you have to pull that off before the cut?
I have seriously considered doing this, but, assuming cutting with a circular saw, I'm not confident that I would be able to cut a straight line along the joists! Of course, I could just attach a guide onto the side of the joists...
Maybe I'm more afraid to try it (or lazy), than I realized... :)
Since you only need to trim less than 1/4" off the top of the joists, buy a small (3"-4") hand planer. Bosch makes a decent one. It would be tricky to hold the circular saw on the side of the joist and cut to the line ... and it makes me nervous whenever I try. But with a planer, you can take off very small amount at a time, sneaking up on the line.
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Hi Melissa, I did my referencing 1 1/2" down from where i wanted to cut, attached a piece of strapping, and ran a cordless circular saw along it. I had hot water baseboard and stairs to deal with, so I also made liberal use of a tiger saw with a fresh blade, and did some cleaning up with a sharp block plane and chisel. I actually surprised myself with how true it all came out, and although quite an extreme solution, the resulting hardwood install made it worthwhile. Proper subfloor prep and flatness makes for a quality install. I think you would compromise the lower lip of the groove side too much if you planed the necessary amount off of the flooring to go that route. good luck, i hope this helped
If you find yourself stripping the ply in the higher room an adze makes a fine joist tuning tool... I would probably strip the ply, use an adze to take care of the stuck glue and ply, cleat the joists, apply 3/4 ply between, then top with 1/2" ply... that would give you only a 1/16 difference whych i would split by sanding and filling... probably a bunch of work but it would maintain the integerty of the flooring system.
james