Wood flooring installation questions!
I bought some 3/4″ solid wood Cherry 5″ wide plank flooring, pre-finished. No instructions, no company labels. It was at an auction and I got a great price. 1500 square feet. I will be putting it down over a 3/4″ glued and air stapled plywood sub-floor. First question…I looked at Lumber Liquidators’ web site and it said the planks should be zig-zag glued to the plywood, as well as nailed. I also looked at DYI sites that say put down tar paper between the sub floor and the planks, which obviously would mean no glue. Which is right? Also, when I put down a 2 1/4″ oak patch in an existing bedroom, I used headless self-tapping screws, blind in the tongues. They worked great on the smallish patch area. Okay to do the whole floor that way? Second question….one of the auctioneers, an old contractor, said pre-finished flooring should be polyed, because if you spill something on the floor, the liquid will get into the cracks between the boards and cause problems. True? Or is the pre-finish enough? Thanks!
Replies
3/4" solid wood t&g flooring?? Nail it down with a flooring cleat nailer, over 15# felt.
What about rosin paper? Also, I remember a comment from this site concerning not using felt indoors for health reasons. Your thoughts?
What about rosin paper? Also, I remember a comment from this site concerning not using felt indoors for health reasons. Your thoughts?
I don't use rosin..
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
"Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints"
nail the floor down over felt...
use a cleat nailer like so...
flooring nailer....
don't forget to renail the subfloor...the staples may not be long or often enough...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
are the backs of this relieved or plain flat?
What is under your subfloor? crawl space or finished? Is it a damp space and is there any sort of VB between the upper and lower level?
Is this flooring cuped or flat?
Why did you staple the subfloor instead of using screws or ring shanked nails? Is this a new house or remo?
Do not top coat this. The finish on it is likely harder than what you can apply on site. and you will still have seams where spilled liquid can seep in and cause troubles, clean up spilled liquid instead of letting it have enough time to seep in.
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
Piffin,
I responded to your reply, but didn't do it directly to you, but rather as another post. Please check my reply to your questions and let me know what your respones would now be. Thanks.
Have to ask what $s the auction price deal was, (if you don't mind.)
$2.35 per square foot. I think that's less than half, don't you? Let me know.
Most important I think, is to make sure the moisture content is within 3-4% of the subfloor.Probably won't be a problem after a while of sitting in the space, but you'd want to check it before starting anyways.Check CL on a regular basis. I have the Bostich stapler with the rolling finish foot - I bought mine new from Amazon for about $369, it is very handy and fast, and more importantly - it'll hammer the planks TIGHT. you won't be able to get the floor as tight using screws.I've seen the Bostich staplers on CL around around here for between $150-250 a lot. You could buy one used, use it at your leisure and sell it when you are done for about what you paid for it.You time it right - you could use it all winter and in the spring I'll be you'd sell it in a heartbeat as a lot of folks will be planning new floors after the winter months.JT
Did OK.
Now, about that Piffin cartoon...
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
View Image
Thanks for digging up the photos, rez. They should provide plenty of inspiration for a good cartoon.
Hummmm, how about a Piffin bobblehead doll for the dashboard?
"Hummmm, how about a Piffin bobblehead doll for the dashboard?"
It should be a little taller than normal so we can see the drywall screw that is used to fashion the neck. Spring goes on the tip so it will still bobble as required.
It should be a little taller than normal so we can see the drywall screw that is used to fashion the neck.
I was thinkin' that he ought to be breakin' a drywall screw in half, super hero style.
Say, can you tell our cartoonist how make a file out of his drawings, so he can attach them to his posts?
I was looking forward to seeing someone pasting the piffin caricature on to Beckman's rooftop bordello.
I was thinking holding it like a baseball bat ready to hit it out of the park, ready for any pitch.even the curve you threw me here in this thread
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Actually I was hoping Bob the cartoonist would create a strip about tradesmen and their humor, based on some of the more memorable characters here.
Having our own cartoonist would sure liven things up. We certainly provide enough material to merit a weekly panel, at the least.
sheesh, didn't anybody get a picture of my GOOD SIDE?!?!?!?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Oh yeah,
View Image
Let us not forget..
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Ha! That's the one I was looking for!
Hi Piffin,
Wow! nice to be able to put a face to the name.
If you were laying down an underlayment directly over a subfloor would you use drywall screws or woodscrews? My carepenter used drywall screws. Do drywall screws have more holding power than woodscrews?
Discovered another flaw in the underlayment in the kitchen today when I went to look at the finished floor. a "spongy" area just in front of the baseboard heater. Now I will have to get after the carpenter to come in and fix that. Seems everytime he does a job he has to come in and redo it. Why doesn't he check his work over when he's finished?
The 1/2" sheet of select plywood (underlayment) has too much flex.
One more question.. The flooring company that came in to lay the vinyl and engineered hardwood floor laid the vinyl right over the 1/2" plywood which had minor gaps between the seams plus it was screwed down and not nailed. Aren't most vinyl floors laid over smooth sheets of underlayment (3/8" thick) and nailed not screwed down?
wanda
Hi Wanda-Paste your post ^^^ onto 'your' thread and I'm sure it will be over the 200 post mark soon! :o)Edit: Sheesh, closer to 300!!!
Edited 9/16/2009 9:09 pm by kenhill3
That's a whale of a lot of questions for this early in the morning, but good to get the grey matter churning. There is info missing to fully answer all these.Drywall screws are really good only for drywall. Heads tend to snap off when using them for structural uses because the wire is thin and brittle. They have come to be called Piffin screws because I campaign against using them for other things like this. I get more concerned with thoise who use them for wall cabinets that could fall and hurt somebody, or for staging construction.But whether you will have a problem or not is an open question. I don't know what the subfloor was, if he used const adhesive and how much, what spacing he used for the screws, etc. Odds are that if he use glue and used enough screws,you are OK with the 1/2" underlay because it is not really a structural component in most cases.( under ceramic tiles would be different. I would be more questioning with 3/8" or 1/4"The thing that would concern me is the vinyl installers - no floor levelor or patch compound over screws or seams. If this was a thick non-adhered type like congoleum, you may be OK, but if it was a fully adhered thin vinyl, the foot traffic will show those seams telegraphing through.I can't say from here what the spongey feeling is. ( You don't weigh in at 320#, do you?) It could be a bad spot in the subfloor, or a spot where not enough screws are holding the underlayment down, or no glue there. He might have been trying to hold screws back from where he was afraid of hitting the copper pipes supplying the heat - or is this electric bb heat?
Without knowing the reason, I can't recommend a fix.Story about a lumpy floor - one to make you smile after your long saga.carpet layer was doing a living room floor for a lady. He was greeted at the door and shown the work space which was emptied of furniture and ready for him. But she had a pet parakeet flitting about her head and sometimes sitting on her shoulder. He asked if she could cage the bird, since he would be back and forth with the door open occasionally and did not want to be responsible for the bird escaping. she complied.So he went about his business, but being a cig smoker, he went out a couple of times to smoke, taking his pack of Lucky Strikes from the rolled over shoulder of his T-shirt. as he was finishing and cleaning up scraps and vacumning, he noticed a lump under the carpet. This gave him a bit of anxiety, so he reached for a smoke. The pack of cigs was not there is its customary location above his biceps."Aha!" he thinks! I lost my Luckies under the carpet! So he gets his larger rubber maul from the van and proceeds to pound away to make the lump flatten down without needing to pull the carpet back and retrieve them. He is in a hurry to get to the store for more of them.Finished and happy with his work, he goes over the final checklist with the lady and gets her signature of approval so he can get paid. While doing this review, she asks him if he has seen her parakeet, who apparently has learned the skill of openning the cage door.
He has not, so she says she's sure it will turn up, but is worried that it might have flown away....so he helps he conduct a search for 5-10 minutes, unsuccessfully, and finally leaves.By now he is really wanting some nicotine badly, and as he drives off, he looks and sees right in front of him on the dashboard - his pack of Luckies!
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Hi Piffin,
I should nickname you the Great Oracle! You are a wealth of information.
Finally got around to reading my e-mails.
Thanks for taking the time to answer all those questions.
The carpenter used 12" thick select plywood. 16 OC. No adhesive was used. Is that unusual. I know if you were building a new house and installing a subfloor you would use adhesive and TG plywood. Buidling codes around here are slack!
As for the vinlyl flooring.. It's called fiber flooring, the kind that isn't glued down.
The subfloor in the kichen "spongy area" probably doesn't have enough screws holding it down. I found an area in the livingroom like that. Noticed a lot of flex when I walked over it and then noticed the nailing pattern. (missing 2 screws) a simple fix! There was no adhesive/glue used. The kitchen is over an open basement. I have electric baseboard heaters.
About those drywall screws. Only reason I'm asking is because I found a few broken drywall screw heads on the floor and on the counter when I went up to check the flooring. So I figured they were more brittle and more likely to break than wood screws. You would prefer to use wood screws and adhesive to fasten down an underlayment.
That's quite the story.. how long did it take you to type all that and post it? LOL
I'm feeling much better today. The installer I hired did a fantastic job. there are not many professional installers that would take on a job like that. They usually stay away from someone else's Screw up.
Wanda
.
Edited 9/18/2009 12:00 pm by Wanda200
I have a flooring nailer that can shoot staples or regular cleat nails. A flooring guy told me to use staples because they have more holding power that a cleat nail. This is for some 3/4" x 3 1/4" soild maple. Does anybody have an opinion on this? Thanks.
This is why this message board is so valuable. The first three guys who reply give excellent advice. One of them even takes the time to look out for potential problems, asking pertinent questions.
I've always been impressed by the quality of knowledge available here and this thread is a fine example of that. Tip of the hat to you guys, for sharing your hard earned experience in this selfless way.
I TOTALLY agree!!!! Thank you ALL!!!
"I TOTALLY agree!!!! Thank you ALL!!!"
Bob, If you click on Piffin's name, you'll find that he has more posts here than would seem humanly possible. That makes him some kind of Super Hero, wouldn't you agree? So how about you drawing a character named Piffin, in honor of our long suffering mentor? Should be easy to post here, for all of us to enjoy.
If you make it a PDF file, someone will surely turn it into a T-shirt. Maybe you'd like to do that yourself. How about it?
Where is his picture to draw from? I'm not sure how to post a picture here? I'm not a computer whiz.
Where is his picture to draw from?
He's an old white guy like me, except he shaves. Draw him square jawed and muscular, with a steely glint in his eye and a cool superhero costume.
Using "attach files" post a first draft in a new thread with "Super Piffin" as the topic. That'll get the ball rolling. You'll get lots of creative suggestions, mostly tongue in cheek.
Who knows? It could lead to one of the more memorable threads of the year on BT.
Brown-noser. Running for office?
:)"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"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
Brown-noser. Running for office? :)
HA! Yea, right. I may be opinionated but I ain't stoopid.
You can't brown nose me anyways! I got your number. Besides, Eddie doesn't remember you and me fighting....;)I know you are just trying to interject positive comments and creative idears wherever you can
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Thanks Piffin, and to answer your questions, (I didn't realize there was so much more I should have put in!)...
The cherry has several 1/4" shallow grooves on the backside, about an inch apart.
The plywood sub-floor is glued with sub-floor adhesive, then stapled with glue-covered 1 3/4" staples every few inches. It's very strong and stable.
I used staples because they're very fast and very strong, and I use a lot of them. Every few inches!
The new flooring will be over living spaces below (second floor application) for the most part, except in the family room, where this is the situation: I poured a rebar grid reinforced monolithic slab that is about 5" thick and goes all the way down the sides about 16" thick and 4' deep. The framed walls are 2 x 6". On top of the cured slab I put a 6 mil plastic vapor barrier that seamlessly covers the slab and goes up each wall about 6". On top of that I framed PT 2 x 6's on edge, 16" on center. The ductwork is between the framing, resting on 1" rigid foam. Then I had closed cell foam sprayed around the ductwork and between the framing, a couple of inches thick. I put 1 x 2's flat on top of the 2 x 6's to give me a frame heighth of 6 1/4" to allow for the rigid foam, 4' duct work, and a small layer of fiberglass batt on top of the ductwork to stop any condensation in the ducts. Then glued and stapled 3/4" plywood. I guess it's rather elaborate.
Lastly, I know all about cleat nailers. But I thought about the screws because I think there's somewhat of a skill that I don't have using one efficiently, plus I'd have to rent one and I'll be doing this bit by bit over time and don't want to rent one 20 tines. I guess I could buy one and sell it down the road, but the screws are easy, don't show, hold well, and I can work on it a little at a time.
You answered the poly coating question, but what about gluing down the cheery? Yes, right to the sub-floor, or no, using tar paper like others say??? Thank you all!
I think you'll be fine with out glueing it. Rent a flooring stapler/cleat nailer. Or better yet, buy one and then ebay it when you are done with it. That way you can get the pre-finished flooring cleat which will make it much easier on you. Since this is solid flooing, you'll most likely have some hockey stick shaped boards, and a pneumatic flooring nailer will really help you knock them into place. You'll have a heck of a time doing it with glue and or screws.Over living space, you can use rosin paper under it, or if you prefer, tar paper is fine as well. Some say it gives off an odor, some say it doesn't. I only really use it to shim up small irregularities in the flooring. I've started using quiet step underlayment too which has a plastic film and satisfies my desire for a vapor barrier when needed. But 9 times out of ten I'll just use rosin paper. Also, if you are comfortable with the subfloor go ahead and cover it. Just remember, you can't fix squeaks once the flooring is down. Also, don't re-coat the flooring. The carpenter you talked to isn't familiar with pre-finished flooring i suspect. I'm a fan of site finished flooring, but there is a reason that they sell pre-finished flooring as well.
Thank you!!! Great info!
Reason I asked about the underlyuing materials and such has to do with moisture and holding power.I would use a power nailer and lay this over rosin paper.Lumber liquidators is out to luncch on most stuff, including the glue procedure for this onereason for gluing hardwood flooring s that the wider sizes can be more prone to cup, swell, etc and lue will prevent that to some degree, so I am not against gluing this down.But it is probably not necessary. The relief cuts in the backs tell me this is a fairly decent milling compnay product. And with finished rooms below, you should noit have tooo muhc moisture problems affecting it after it is installed.Where LL is out to lunch is that they are talking of using adhesive from a tube. If you gluye down wood floors, you want the Bostik wood floor glue and it =comes in a bucket to be troweled on with a notched trowel. It has just a little bit of give to to it, to be forgiving. The other tube type const adhesives tend to be a bit too hard.Plywood will accept any typical fastener from power nbails, to cleats, to flooring staples just fine. Buy a gun and sell it when you are done. The screw idea is screwy unless it is a smnall entry or a landing on stairs. You really would regret trying it that way.Good LuckNo need to caricature me though. These guys just need somewthing productive to do with their time.
Maybe they can all come lay this flooring over the Thanksgiving weekend.;)
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Thanks a lot! Your info was MOST informative! I will skip the caricature for now. I'll be busy enough with my remodeling project! Thanks again.