Wood You Like F.A.Q. & News

More pointers in installing wooden flooring on underfloor heating

Today we received a interesting story about a wood flooring project that involves underfloor heating. The story and questions can be found here, we've copied and pasted the most relevant ones in this new article.

Woodchip asks:

I am in the process of procuring wood for our new house.

New, as in long term project (4yrs now).

We have piped in under floor heating upstairs and downstairs

The downstairs floor is 4" concrete and not perfectly level, so before we lay any wood, we would require to level it with a self leveling compound of some sort. Something I have no working knowledge of. Can someone suggest a good self leveling compound/screed mix that we could use for a fairly large area.

I did see something in B&Q, but have no idea how good it is, or the brand name.

Acrylic level compounds are always much better - stronger - than latex self-levelling compounds. Especially when underfloor heating in concerned. See here for more information on preparing your underfloor and using levelling compounds.

Our downstairs rooms are (approx.)7.2m x 5m, 5m x4m, 5m x 3.5m & 7.2m x 4m.

The upstairs floor has 2 different types of floors. One room with concrete layed on Lewis plates 7.2m x 4m.

The rest is a biscuit system, with 22m moisture resistant chip board, with 2" x 1" strips nailed to the joists through the chip board, with underfloor heating pipes layed between the 2" x 1" strips & covered with a sand cement mix. These room sizes are (approx.) 6m x 5m, 5m x 3m + a landing 7.2m x 1.2m.

The floors as they are, have all been down for well over a year now, and finally we are at the stage where we want to lay solid wood on all these floors.

I'd rather not put down chipboard upstairs and then lay the wood on top, as I think there is enough weight on the joists already. Obviously we can nail the floor that uses the biscuit system, if need be.

As long as every room is treated as a separate area you don't really have to worry about creating one type of underfloor.
However, we are not in favour of installing solid wood flooring on Underfloor Heating Systems, there is a larger risk in shrinkage and cupping than with wood-engineered flooring. Our Duoplank Oak range for instance has wide boards AND is guaranteed on underfloor heating systems.

We have looked at OAK some at 120mm x 18mm, and 140mm x 22mm. We have been told by some to avoid a wide plank, with underfloor heating but this minimum width seems to have grown wider over time.

The only thing that doesn't seem to have changed is the minimum moisture level of 8% in the wood.

If your heart is set on installing solid Oak floors your best bet is indeed narrower width, we wouldn't recommend wider boards than 120mm. And it is good to read that the minimum moist content for Oak solid flooring is mentioned everywhere correctly. Do note this should be the absolute minimum moist content when your wood arrives in your home. If your home climate is even dryer there is a risk the wood will loose even more moist.
We also hope they also mention the maximum moist content solid Oak wood flooring should have: 11%.

Advice on the floors has varied some saying glue it, some saying float it.

With regard to putting down a 2mm underlay, we have been advised against it "as it tends to stop heat coming through, more than if the floor was first covered with 18mm chipboard and then had the wood layed on top of that". Wood being a poor insulator

I did notice a comment on this site, not to lay a solid floor on underlay if the room was longer than 5m.

With all that I've been told so far, the method I would prefer, is just glueing the floor straight on to the leveled floor.

Most manufacturers recommend to fully bond a wooden floor to the level subfloor where underfloor heating is concerned., specially solid wood flooring. Always use flexible adhesive and a correct notched trowel. The subfloor needs to be as level as possible to avoid air-gaps - adhesive isn't a 'filler', as some may think.
As said above, if you treat every room separate we don't see a need for installing chipboard first (chipboard wouldn't be our first choice for creating one type of subfloor: plywood is much better suited).

You are correct in stating solid wood floors in rooms wider than 5m shouldn't be installed floating on underlayment, much better is to fully bind them.

Do note the rule of thumb in regards of expansion gaps with Solid Oak flooring: for every meter width of the room add 3 - 4 mm gap with a minimum of 10mm. Based on your details this means a gap - everywhere! - of around 18 - 20mm.

We would like to direct you to two of our guides:
Wooden flooring and Underfloor Heating
and our Comprehensive Installation Guide

Wood Guide turns Ebooklet

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Floor preparations over bitumen - guest post

Our British wood flooring Association colleague Matt Bourne brings you the following advice when faced with bitumen on your underfloor or subfloor:

Question: "Is there any way we can screed over bitumen when we want to glue a wooden floor down?"

Matty's advice:

The bitumen should always be removed and not screeded over. The subfloor SHOULD be shot blasted to remove all bitumen and glue residue.

I prime with a neoprime primer use acrylic leveling compound over the top ONLY if the Bitumen is well stuck down and very thin. This will give you a good flat base. You can then use a epoxy dpm paint to deal with any moister problems.

Now please remember that this is NOT a recommended method by the product manufacturers. You are relying on how well the bitumen paint is stuck to the subfloor!

Do not use a latex flooring smoothing compound! These compounds are good for nothing and normally used by people who have no idea. ( 95% of builders ) They will stick to anything you put them over but have very little strength, so basically you can NOT use a epoxy compound or any sort of glue over the top!

Matt Bourne: "BwfA: British Wood Flooring Association, Approved"

Q and A's on how to lay a wooden floor 3 - materials

Our most popular article: "How to lay a wooden floor, keep it simple" has a total of 3 pages of further Q and A's, in our opinion becoming too laborious for everyone to have to go through. We all know every home, every situation, every interior design style and/or wishes are different so no article on its own will ever answer all questions, but we can but try.

In this (and following) article we have grouped Q and A's from the original article per, we think, related subjects.

Materials
Q: Hi,
I would like to put down solid oak flooring upstairs on top of the existing floor (90mm-18mm – various lengths). I am going to level the existing floor with layers of hardwood plywood and I am thinking of putting 6mm fiberboard underlay for acoustic reasons. I am considering a floating installation, however, a number of websites state that NO solid wood flooring can be floated.
Hoverer, if it is suitable for floating do you think it will:

• educe the amount of squeaks and creaks that hardwood floors develops over time,
• be as long lasting as the nail down or glue down floor.
• have some important advantages and disadvantages to the other fitting options.

Thank you in advance. Best, Konrad

A: Hi Konrad
The opinions on floating solid wood floors vary indeed. We - and our manufacturers - have no problem with floating solid wood floors, as long as certain rules are followed.

One of them is - unfortunately for you in this case - the width of the boards: narrower than 110mm means glueing them down.
You can use the same preparations you're planning now, use a suitable parquet adhesive and fully bond the floor to the subfloor you've made.

Q: Thank you very much for your help. I am inclined to go with your excellent suggestion. I would like to have a stable floor but I am also concerned with the footsteps sound (especially upstairs).
Just one more query if you don’t mind. From the DIYnot forum I learned that you are familiar with the Sika Silent Layer Mat installation. With this method, being a semi-floating one, do you think I can:

• install the floor continuously between rooms without dividing up the floor;
• install sliding door wardrobe on it.

Great thanks again. Regards, Konrad

A: Hi Konrad
The Sika Silent Mat is one solution indeed. Another one would be the Elastilon 'self-adhesive' sound-insulation underlayment.

Q: Hi,
Thank you for your reply. Regarding the Elastilon underlayment or the Sika mat: would they act like DPM causing the existing wooden subfloor to sweat? Konrad

A: Hi Konrad
The Elastilon comes without DPM and is therefore very suitable to use on existing floorboards or 'subfloors' of sheet material like plywood or chipboard.
We suggest you use the Elastilon 'Strong' which is the most suitable for narrow strips.

Q: Your site is of great help.
We're planning to lay oak flooring onto a new concrete floor which has dpm and insulation.

Are the basic steps:

1. Ensure concrete floor is level - if not use latex screed
2. Lay vapour barrier or underlay
3. Lay hardboard
4. Glue or fix boards to plywood

Is there a need to secure the hardboard to the concrete with adhesive or fastners? Thanks in advance, Al

A: Hi Al
If your boards have T&G, are 100mm wide or wider and your concrete floor is level there's no need to install plywood for installation purpose.
You can install the new floor floating, using a Combi-underlayment that contains a DPM layer, glueing all T&G's and leave an expansion gap around the perimeter of the room.

That's all you need in fact.

Q: Hi
I am going to be laying a solid wood floor on concrete that is very old - 40 yrs min i think. i have a few questions:

• I want to face fix and glue onto 12mm ply. what is the best glue to use?

• I will be laying the air bubble and foil insulation which is 4mm thick under the ply. do i need to lay acoustic underlay on top of the ply?

• I hope to use 180mm sawn oak boards - planks basically with no t&g. do i need to do anything special with this type of wood ?

• what is the difference between this wood and t&g. is the t&g option better ?

thanks very much for your help.

john paul

A: Hi John Paul
If you glue down you can't use another underlayment between ply and boards. The best adhesive to use would be a flexible adhesive (like Sika T54, Lecol MS250 or Mapei P9910K)

Make sure the Oak boards are dried to floor standard (moist content in the wood between 9 - 11%) and can acclimatise in the room you plan to have them installed in.

Difference between your boards and T&G boards: T&G's can be installed floating, secretly nailed or fully glued down, boards without T&G should be glued and pinned down (as you plan to do).
Hope this helps

Q: My ground floor is covered in herring bone parquet which I believe to be paranna pine laid about 60 years ago. In some places gaps have appeared between the blocks. I've been told that the usual filler is sawdust (from sanding the floor, which I've done) mixed with some adhesive.

Is this correct and if so what's the best type of adhesive to use?

Once the gaps are filled I intend to re-seal with a hard waxoil and I'd like to keep the floor as light as possible. I assume your normal stuff won't darken it too much? Peter P

A: Welcome Peter P
The best product to use for filling gaps in parquet floors is special wood-filler like Lecol7500, not white pavc wood glue.
Mix it with the sand dust from the original floor to reduce colour differences as much as possible.

Natural HardWaxOil will, like any natural finish, darken the floor a little bit. How much you can test by wetting a little piece of bare - sanded - wood, this will 9 times out of 10 the end colour after applying a natural, clear finish.
Hope this helps

Q: I'm fixing to install a bamboo tounge & grove wooden floor over a plywood sub floor. I was going to nail it using a finishing nail gun or should I use another type of nailing system? What about drilling & then nailing? I was hoping not to have to nail every board but from reading this forum every board has to have at least 2 nails. Can the tongue & groove be glued & lay as a floating floor? Or can the tongue & groove be glued and nail every 12"?
Lucy

A: Hi Lucy, welcome
Depends on how wide your bamboo boards are, normally around 90mm? That is to narrow to install floating, but glueing them down with parquet adhesive would be another (better?) option.

In our experience Bamboo has very tiny T&G and might splinter/break very easily when nailing them and yes, every board has to be nailed every 30 - 35 cm.
Hope this helps

A: Thanks for the advise. The planks are 3 3/4" wide and I was going to do a floating floor because I felt that this was the easiest way and I'm doing it myself with my daughter but if you say I can't i will glue it.

Thanks again. Lucy

Q: Hello
I'm after some advice on the best way to install a solid oak floor.

I am fitting 120mm wide T&G oak on top of a slightly uneven plywood floor in a living room (6m x 4m) on a first floor above a bedroom and want to reduce the sound transmission to the floor below as much as I can.

After looking at other posts I was considering using fibre boards to level the existing floor and then fitting the oak flooring using the floating technique and gluing the T&G.
Would this solution work ok or can you recommend a better solution?
M W.

A: Hi M W
Fibre boards should be ok to use, or you can use Timbermate Duratex (no DPM) 5mm for extra sound insulation. In our experience it reduces the sound of footfall better than the fibre boards.

Q: I am planing to install a solid wood floor on concrete. Ive had to remove some old tiles which have left the concrete black but dry.

I was sold Gutoid Parkett S11 adhesive and Stopgap F76 waterproof membrane with the wood. However, I haven't read anywhere that its necessary to put membrane down if I'm glueing, do I need to? (id rather not if poss). If I do then can I put the glue directly onto the membrane?

I'm also a bit concerned as I bought all this stuff 2 years ago and have just noticed that the glue and membrane has a shelf life of 12 months.
Any advice would be much appreciated as im really confused now.
Guy Rowland

A: Hi Guy, welcome
Dates on products are there for a good reason: their quality deteriorates rather quickly once they pass their 'use-by' date. Bin it - ecofriendly!, is all I can say.

What is the width of your new floor boards? If wider than 100mm then the easiest and simplest option is to buy combi-underlayment, PVAC wood-glue and to install your wood floor using the floating method.
Hope this helps

Q: Hi Karin H

Thanks for your rapid response (on a bank holiday as well)

I thought I should probably bin it. The boards are 12cm wide, but there are a lot of short boards, maybe 25% under 50cm long (but only just, and I didn't have any problem avoiding a pattern when I laid upstairs).

Another concern is that the concrete floor is not completely level and bulges in places. What do you recommend to sort this out?
Guy

A: Hi Guy
One of our contacts wrote an article on preparations of the underfloor on this FAQ & News site, see here.
Especially bulges are tricky when not leveled, specially with many short lengths. The floor will see-saw all over the place. So best thing to do is making sure the concrete floor is made level.

Hope this helps
Wood You Like Ltd (not really into bank holidays anyway ;-))

Q and A's on how to lay a wooden floor 2 - preparations

Our most popular article: "How to lay a wooden floor, keep it simple" has a total of 3 pages of further Q and A's, in our opinion becoming too laborious for everyone to have to go through. We all know every home, every situation, every interior design style and/or wishes are different so no article on its own will ever answer all questions, but we can but try.

In this (and following) article we have grouped Q and A's from the original article per, we think, related subjects.

Preparations:
Q: Lifted old parquet flooring. How can I remove bitumen before laying?

A: With a lot of elbow grease I'm afraid. Chisel off as much as possible and remove last bit with petrol - kerosene (very, very careful with this!!!!)
Any residue of bitumen will effect the bonding time of any modern adhesive type (like Lecol5500 or B92 Stycobond): instead of 4 - 5 hours it can take up to 24 hours before it holds properly and you can sand over it.

Q: Hi there
We've just built a new house and have had the heating on for the past number of weeks. We tested the moisture level of the concrete the flooring will go on at it's currently 4%. The wood for the floor has been in the house for the past 2 weeks.
Would we be ok to go ahead and lay the flooring now?
Thanks Avril

A: Dear Avril
You have to wait a bit longer we're afraid. The moist level in the concrete should be 2% or less before you can install the wood floor.

Rule of thumb: every inch (2.5 cm) of concrete/screed takes approximately 30 days to dry.

Q: In that I am totally inexperienced at this, I humbly engage your patience.
Would I need to remove the old flooring before laying the new or could I do a layover? My house was built in 1911; the panels have not been changed since the origination
Thank you Bobbie

A: Dear Bobby.
If your existing floorboards are level (un-cupped and sound) you can install your new floor on top of it without any problems.
We recommend you use a foam underlayment for sound-insulation, leave expansion gaps all around of min. 10mm.

Hope this helps

Q: Hi,
I'm planning to install 20mm solid oak T&G into my kitchen. The room is 8m x 3m total size, but half is well ventilated suspended (400mm joist spacing), and the other half is concrete (30yrs old, dry).
I want to lay the boards parallel to the shorter wall, to try to give the impression of a wider room.
As luck would have it, the heights of the concrete and joists do actually match, so I don't have any making up to do there, but I'm not sure whether to:

1. Lay directly onto whats there; I would have to noggin all the joists first because they run in the 'wrong' direction. I was going to secret nail to the joists but then when I get to the concrete I suppose I'll have to glue?
2. Counter batten the entire lot and then secret nail the whole lot to these. Unfortunately though this would raise the whole floor by the batten depth (at least 20mm?), and the head height is already 'snuggish' in the concreted half of the room. Also this would give a nice trippable step coming into the room...

I realise I'll have to live with a compromise somewhere though, I just wondered what you would do if it was your place?
Cheers, Tom

A: Hi Tom, welcome
We would make sure there is one type of underfloor, using sheets of hardboard (glued to concrete, nailed to floorboards). This will also solve your problem of installing the new boards in the same direction of the old boards.
Then, depending on your preferences you could either glue the new floor to the hardboard or install floating using a foam underlayment.
Hope this helps.

Q: Hi, I want to lay 23 m2 of solid oak T&G flooring, the existing floor is a concrete one, with hard vinyl tiles layed down on bitumen. what would you recommend? If I take up the vinyl tiles I know it will be a real pain getting up the bitumen, but if i lay the oak floor floating, will I have problems with it coming apart?
lee

A: Hi Lee, welcome

If the vinyl tiles are stuck down well, the underfloor fairly level and your solid Oak boards are wider than 110mm then we would install a floor in this circumstances floating on a combi-underlayment, glueing all T&G's correctly.
Hope this helps

Q: Hi, thanks for the quick response. Unfortunately the floor is a solid oak,18mm thick, by 83mm wide random plank length, so I assume laying it floating is a no-no. would it be possible to glue it to the existing vinyl tiles, provided they were stuck down well?
lee

A: Hi Lee

We're afraid not. The structure of the tiles will not allow the adhesive to bond correctly. alternatively you could screw plywood ontop of it first and then glue the wood floor on to that.

Q: Hi Karin, thank you again. Ive decided to fetch up the existing vinyl tiles. I'm either going to use elastilon strong over a DPM, or use a primer and a liquid batten such as sikabond T2.
Which method would you recommend? And do I have to remove all the bitumen residue from the concrete before using a primer?
Many thanks for your patience!
Lee

A: Hi Lee

The more bitumen you remove the better it is. Using Elastion also has the advantage of tackling minor unevennesses in the underfloor, but for the rest it is personal preference what to use.

FAQ: Can I install wood over carpet?

Question received
Hi
We are thinking of laying a wood laminate floor in our rented house. At the moment it is carpeted, with underlay, on top of concrete. The carpet is quite thin. If we give the carpet a good shampoo, is it ok to put the floor on top of the carpet, to all intents using this as an underlay for the floor.

Our answer:

Using a carpet underlay or a carpet as underlayment for wooden flooring is asking for trouble I'm afraid.
Cleaning a carpet will never get rid of all the dust, dirt (and bugs) it has gathered over its lifetime.

Best is to remove it, including the carpet underlayment and start 'a fresh'.

Wood You Like Ltd

Solid Offers: beware of the "short end of the stick"

Wood flooring is a very popular floor covering - besides being easy to clean and anti-allergic, it enhances your home and can even increase the value of it.

But.... being popular has its own down-sides: many are jumping on the 'band-wagon' of its success to make a profit. Nothing wrong with this when quality products are offered for what they are worth, we all know and understand the logic of 'value for money'.

'Value for money' not only means supplying decent products but also supplying decent information, correct and honest. And that is sometimes the biggest problem with 'Solid Offers' - too little information on what the 'offer' really contains.

This pictures was kindly supplied to us by one of DIYnot.com forum members. Besides problems with the pre-oiled finish and installation errors by the fitter (not the forum-member) the floor has many very short lengths and hardly any longer lengths.

Products like these (most with a proper finish) are sold as Solid Oak floorboards - Oak strip flooring - in random lengths between 300 - 1200mm.

The correct and honest information missing in the shop and on the packaging is the amount of short lengths a pack contains. Sometimes as much as 50% of the contents of a pack is shorter than 500mm and only 1 or 2 boards - if your lucky - are the full 1200mm long.

Since it is recommended to prevent a pattern of joins and to space the joins of connecting rows at least 300mm apart with this amount of short lengths it is very hard to do - creating not only an unstable, prone to movement, floor - see picture on the right - but also giving your solid Oak real wood floor a very hectic appearance, specially if all 4 sides are bevelled. This pronounces the many joins in the floor even more.

Value for money: if the information on the packs leaves you in doubt ask the supplier for specifications - he/she ought to know what he/she is selling you in the first place!

Don't end up with the 'short end of the stick' or in these cases 'short end of the boards'!

More questions on underlayment (and gaps)

Underlayment is one of those items where we receive many questions on (and that's no wonder, there are so many different products around - all with their own benefits, instructions and promotion slogans).
Last week we had the following (on-line) conversation:

Freddy asked:

Sorry in advance if this is going over old ground. Have recently bought bamboo flooring and will use the "floating method" to install, the underfloor is all old concrete.
Could you give me some guidance on underlay etc. Is it better to use foam and hardboard or the all in one "feltboard type"? Also what kind of expansion gap should I leave as the suppliers told me it is minimal 5/6mm as bamboo is virtually shrinkproof.
Thanks very much for any advice you can give me.
Cheers Freddy

We answered:

Dear Freddy

If your concrete floor is level (may have a gentle sloop of 1 - 2 mm per meter, but no sudden drops or 'hills') it's bes to use a combi-underlayment. We always recommend to leave 10mm gaps all around, no natural wooden flooring is 'shrink' or 'expansion' proof.

Hope this helps
Wood You Like Ltd

Which resulted in the next question from Freddy:

Thanks for the guidance,(the underlay I mean comes in blocks/slabs and you just cut to fit.The floor is not too bad a little slope running down the hall about 3/4mm over about 2 metres.
I do have to be careful with not gluing the boards to the underlay don't I.
Also do I need to use cork expansion strips?
Thanks again for the help, it's much appreciated.
Cheers Freddy

Our answer:

Hi Freddy

On concrete underfloors it is best to use an underlayment that contains a DPM. The underlayment you mean I don't think will create a continues barrier. Another option for you would be the ticker Timbermate Excell (5mm versus the standard 3mm of the combi)

You're right about having to be careful when glueing the T&G's, any spills on the underlayment can 'strop' the floor when it 'moves' during the seasons.

Cork expansion strips just fill up your expansion gaps! You don't need them.

Hope this helps
Wood You Like Ltd

Freddy replied as follows:

Thanks very much for the advice, it's very much appreciated.

Cheers
Freddy

Feel free to ask your own question, either by leaving a comment underneath this post - or any other, or in our category 6 - in the relevant FAQ post your query is about:
Benefits, Preparations, Installations or Maintenance and After Care

Did you install your wooden floor yourself and are you darn proud of it? Enter our DIY-Triumphs contest!

Guest post: Preparing a subfloor (underfloor)

Wood You Like not only gives out FREE advice on this FAQ-blog, you can also frequently find us doing so on various (UK-based) DIY-forums (DIY-not, E-build, Trust Experts, Green Building Forum etc). Other professional and dedicated to quality and service trade-persons are doing the same.

It's with great pleasure we can announce a first guest author post by one of these professionals:

Preparing a sub floor (underfloor)

Wooden sub floor

Floorboards, you need to use a long straight edge to determine how smooth your floorboards are. If they are reasonably smooth, i.e. 1-2mm run out, you need to over board with exterior grade plywood of 6mm thickness. If you have bad cupping of the boards you need to step up the thickness of plywood to bridge across the cupped boards. I.e. 12mm +. You can also sand the cupped boards flat and refer back to using the 6mm plywood.

Chipboard This type of sub floor should be over boarded with minimum 6mm plywood.
(Note Wood You Like: if you plan to install a wooden floor using the secret nailing method)

How to install plywood

Plywood should be left to acclimatise in the area to be prepared for a minimum of 48hrs. To fix the plywood to the sub floor it needs to be stapled with divergent staples, nailed with ring shank nails or screwed down. If thicker than 6mm it must be screwed. Always fix the boards working from the centre out wards. Your staples, nails etc should be at 100mm centres and 50mm apart around the edge + no more than 10mm from the edge. You should leave 5mm gap between the board joints. 

Concrete/screed

Use a long straight edge to determine dips and high spots of the sub floor. Any high spots should be ground down. Any low spots should be marked out on the sub floor. If the dips in the base are deeper than 3mm they should be filled with repair compound. All sub floors must be primed! Next you need to apply a suitable levelling compound. All compounds should be laid at a minimum of 3mm thickness and no deeper than 6mm. Mix all compounds as instructed on the bag.

Which smoothing/levelling compound should I use?

Water based: Very good levelling and flow. Also dries to a very hard surface. Down side is that it’s not forgiving with mistakes when mixing, damp or poor priming. This will result in failure.
Acrylic based: Dries to a very hard surface. It’s also difficult to make mistake mixing. Down side is that it does not flow as well as water based compounds.
Latex based:  Easy to mix and very forgiving but not as strong as other compounds, poor shear strength and does not flow very well.
Water based flex: Designed for problem floors which flex. It can be used over floorboards. Down side is the price and must be kept above 3mm deep.

Testing for sub floor moist.

To British standard the amount of moister in a concrete base you wish to lay on, must not be more than 75% relative to humidity. To test this you need a working damp proof membrane and a cured concrete base if new. The test should be done with a hygrometer. This is a box which is sealed to the floor for on average of 48-72hrs. Different mixes and depths take different times to take reading. More than one area of the sub floor must be tested. New concrete will need at least a month per inch to dry! I.e. 6” needs 6 months drying time.
(Note from Wood You Like: other moist measure equipment (tested and approved to be used for floor installation preparations) the mentioned above measures the percentage of moist content in the screed.  If this type of equipment is used the reading should not exceed 2% moist content.)

Surface epoxy dpm.

If your underfloor has a failed damp proof membrane or no damp proof protection at all, you can install an epoxy coat to act as a surface damp proof. This will work up to about 92% relative to humidity moister content, depending on which product is used. You can also use a surface membrane to fast track fitting your new flooring on new concrete sub floors. Make sure you follow instructions supplied with the product you choose.

Matt Bourne (August 2007)

When to install a wooden flooring during renovations - DIY-SOS

During renovations or redecorations a lot of work has to be done; like cabling, plumbing, screeding, plastering, wall-papering, painting etc. When you also plan to have a new wooden floor installed it is very important to schedule this job at the end of the 'line'.

Basically you first have to do all the 'wet-work' in and around the room(s) you plan to have wooden flooring in, plus allow sufficient time for the excess moist of plastering and/or painting to evaporate.

We advised BBC's DIY-SOS team the same when we were asked if it would be possible for us to install one of our quality wooden floors (on short notice).

The short notice wasn't the problem, the fact we would have just one day to install it neither. The fact that there was going to be a lot of plastering and painting in the days before was the problem.
You really shouldn't install a wooden floor (wood-engineered included) straight after the last day of plastering or painting.

Since DIY-SOS is always working on a very tight time-schedule we advised the team to source another type of floor-covering. Of course, in the future we are more than happy to help them out - as long as their project doesn't involve massive plaster work beforehand.

In renovation projects like this it comes in handy when you have a hygrometer in the room(s) you're working in as a guide to when the moist of plastering and painting is gone. You can speed up this process with sufficient ventilation, where the excess moist in the air is drawn out of the room - even in winter, just open the windows for 5 - 10 minutes every hour.

For screed work (or new concrete) there is a practical 'rule of thumb': every inch (2.5 cm) of screed/concrete needs 30 days to dry-out naturally before any floor-covering (but especially wooden floors) can be installed without causing problems of expansion or cupping straight away. The moist in the screed/concrete should be around 2% - 2.5% tops before you can start the installation of a wooden floor.

When you install a wooden floor on a still too wet underfloor you will notice this pretty soon. The wood will absorb the moist of the screed/concrete (even when a combi-underlayment is installed) and expand very quickly.

So be patient and prepare your 'when-to-do-what-task' list carefully but practically.
Better safe than sorry.

Download to Nature

In our April newsletter we explained our sample policy: Samples, why not. Because of the rich characteristics in natural wood we know that a tiny sample of any wood-type will never show you nature's variety in full.
This tiny sample (even larger than most companies do send out), is supposed to be a sample of Oak Smoked and Oiled natural. If you are able to see the whole spectrum of an Oak Smoked and Oiled natural floor you will see this (picture right):

A very wide variety in colours, from very dark (like the tiny sample) to lighter and very light. Some boards have many knots, some none at all, some boards might even have medullary rays ('flecks' or 'mirrors'). At Wood You Like we feel strongly that the best way to select the natural wooden floor most suited for your unique interior design is by looking at very large samples in our showroom or for us to present you with high resolution Interior Design Pictures to show off the rich characteristics of natural wooden flooring.

And that's what we have launched just now: a first batch of 58 high resolution Interior Design Pictures from our Duoplank and Solid Flooring range downloadable from our website. More ranges will follow very soon.

We use a secure server for the downloads and have to ask you a very small donation for this. In keeping with our sustainable sources policy we will however donate 75% of all revenue from the downloads to a local nature group: The Charing Alderbed and Wetland Meadow Conservation Group. (You can find more details about this nature project on our website.)

Wooden Flooring Finish: oil or lacquer? Advantages and Disadvantages

One of the hardest questions to answer is: what makes a better finish, lacquer or oil/HardWaxOil?

First of all it’s down to personal taste and secondly to what is expected of the floor, e.g. easy maintenance, shiny look or natural appearance of the wood.

Historical the wax floor is still seen as very labour intensive to maintain, who doesn’t have memories of caretakers buffing away endlessly week after week after week (be it your “Gran” or the school caretaker). Then came the ‘modern’ lacquer (and synthetic and affordable wall-to-wall carpets) and the original wax floor almost became extinct.

For many decades..................(read more)

Samples, why not

Wood is a wonderful product of nature, very versatile in species.

But nature also 'dictates' very versatile characteristics in every species, making everything individual (like human beings, we're all different in shape, looks, colour and character).

Wood is no different, every individual board has its own colour, look, character. One piece of Oak Rustic can have many knots, sapwood areas and even some medullary rays. Another piece of Oak Rustic (even cut from the same tree) can have a completely different appearance: tiny knots perhaps, slightly darker in colour than its 'neighbouring' board and no medullary rays at all.

That's what makes a wooden floor so natural, but also makes it hard to choose a floor from a tiny sample send out to you. It can never show you all its natural variety.
That's why Wood You Like has large sample boards in the showroom, containing at least three different pieces (single boards) in the sample to give you the correct best impression of how that type of flooring, that type of wood in that type of grade and colour can look like.
That's why Wood You Like websites and online showroom shows interior design pictures, not pictures of a piece of wood. We want to 'show-off' the richness of nature's varied character.

That's why Wood You Like doesn't easily send out tiny samples, it will never give you the best impression. You might receive a dark piece, not matching your style or colour idea at all, while in the total floor it would 'blend' in seamlessly between all other varied in character boards.
There is another reason for not sending samples: all wood-types 'mature' once exposed to light (and not just sun light). Some wood types start pale and get darker or honey-coloured (like Oak), some start light brown and turn brown-reddish over time (specially tropical wood types) and some turn from vaguely dark to deep dark (Jatabo amongst others). A 'fresh' sample send out for a colour match with your design will not show you the ultimate matured appearance of your natural wooden floor.

Nature is too varied to have your choice in wood dictated by a small - tiny sample. Come and see it in situ in our showroom or download our Interior Design Pictures of many wood-types in our various ranges.

More on underlayment

Question:
I've read your guidance on installing over 2 types of subfloor.  In our case most of the floor is newly laid concrete with two areas of wood floorboards.  You suggest a dpm over the concrete and then hardboard over the whole area.  What thickness of board & what type (?ply) do you recommend? How should it be fixed?
We're concerned about the overall thickness of the floorcovering, it is the hall with five doorways off, with four different floorcoverings on the other side.

Answer:
All depends on if you plan to install the wooden floor ongoing (i.e. without thresholds in between the rooms).
Is so, thin sheets of hardboard (3mm) would be sufficient.
If you install all areas as different rooms i.e. using thresholds in between then you use one type of underlayment for those rooms containing concrete (with DPM) and another type for rooms with the existing floorboards (foam underlayment)

Did you install your wooden floor yourself and are you darn proud of it? Enter our DIY-Triumphs contest!

Cables and expansion gaps

10 or even 5 years ago most homes had a television set, a VCR and a hi-fi system. DVD-players have replaced the old video tapes, plasma screens the old 25 inch TV set. Home-cinema's are on the increase, really enjoying the Dolby-surround effect adds various speakers to the audio and visual system.

But where do you hide all these?

 

 

 

We are frequently asked to 'hide' large amounts of cables in the expansion gaps (gap around the perimeter of the floor to allow the wooden floor to expand/shrink over the different seasons: 'wood works'). Not only would this render the necessary gap useless, cramping different cables in this narrow space could also effect the quality of sound and picture negatively.

But we have found a solutions for this. To be honest we can't solve the wiring ourselves, but we would like to introduce you to a company that can solve this for you: CableGuys Ltd, based in Folkestone. They specialise in Home Audio Visual and Corporate Cabling Solutions.
Cables of home theatres, hi-fi systems and cinema's neatly hidden away.

An example of Corporate Gabling Solutions can be seen in the following pictures (with thanks to Cable Guy Mike Hawkes)

What most Solid 'offers' really are

When you search the Internet (or your local paper for that matter) you can easily find many cheap offers in solid Oak wood flooring.

Before buying into these offers, there are a few things you should be aware of:

• Short lengths. Many of these offers contain over 75% short lengths (between 30 to 50cm) instead of a regular mix between short, medium and long lengths (or fixed length of minimum 1.5 meter). Many short boards mean many joins, plus unstable floor.
• Difference in width. Real cheap offers are nothing more than bought over 'left-overs' from pallets. Sizes per pallet can vary, even if the packaging tells you differently. Some minor differences between the boards (1-2mm) doesn't effect the installation that much, but when you end up with a mix of boards all having a different, slightly off average width, you'll end up with one big jig-saw puzzle and nothing will fit tight together. Imagine one row of three meters with three different widths (board 1 110mm, board 2 109mm and board three 111mm). The next row has two boards (one 109mm and one 111mm). Board one in row two connects with board one and two in row one. Because there is already a difference in width between the boards in row one, row two will never fit tightly and so on and so on.

Remember: you get what you pay for. We have seen results of these cheap offers, coming from open sheds where temperature and moist/humidity control isn't one of the priorities of the seller.

Wood You Like doesn't do 'Special' offers, we always offer the best.

FAQ Preparations

Not found the tip or advice you were looking for in this category?

Ask us here

We will answer it to the best of our knowledge and as quick as possible.

If relevant your question will be turned into a new post.

Or check out our Wood Floor Guides:

"Do you know how to immediately increase the value of your house and comfort of your home?"

"7 Easy Steps to Repair/Restore your Parquet Floor"

"3 Easy STeps to Clean and Maintain your Parquet Floor"

One type of underfloor

Explained in another post using the correct underlayment (with floating installation method) has to be the start of your enjoyment of the end result.

When you have one area containing two (or more) types of underfloor you have to start with other preparations: making sure you have one type of underfloor. Example: extension with new concrete underfloor connected to a room which has existing floorboards. Both types of underfloor (can) have a different temperature or moist content and your natural wooden floor will react accordingly: one part of a board when laid on both types could 'go-all-over-the-place' and you could end up with a cupped or warped floor.

Simplest solution in this situation is to install plywood or OSB sheets (cut in small sheets 30 by 60cm maximum) in the whole area. Glue the small sheets with flexible adhesive to the concrete and nail them into existing floorboards. On the plywood/OSB (=sheet material) use a foam or rubber underlay for sound-insulation and your underfloor is ready for the wooden floor.

Type of underfloor is type of underlayment

Based on the 'floating' installation method it depends on the type of underfloor you have what kind of underlayment you need for your wooden floor. (Floating means: wooden floorboards not fixed to the underfloor with adhesive or nailed onto joists/on existing floorboards or sheet material, and where the T&G is glued with PVAC wood glue.)

Concrete floors =  DPM plus sound-insulation (DPM stands for Damp Proof Membrane). More and more sold as a 1 in 2 product with handy self-adhesive overlapping strip of DPM. (Blue roll in picture)

The DPM layer prevents any residue moist from the concrete getting into the wood. Not really needed on concrete underfloors on second floors, but it won't hurt.
The attached foam layer acts as an sound-insulation preventing your real wooden floor 'sounding' like a Melamine Laminate floor and has the ability to 'fill' some minor unevenness in the underfloor.

In existing floorboards, plywood or chipboard underfloors DON'T us DPM. This can cause condensation between the DPM and underfloor/wood. When your underfloor is level a 2-3mm foam is sufficient (white roll). If you need more sound-insulation it's best to use a thicker underlay (brown roll in picture, also available with DPM attached to it for concrete floors).

Whatever kind of underlayment you need, don't cheapskate with the materials you use: it'll cost you in the end (inferior materials = more time correcting plus the end result of your natural real wooden floor could sound like a 'plastic' Melamine Laminated floor).

If you have two or more different types of underlayment, read here

Know what type of Wooden Flooring is offered.

What's in a name: laminated, melamine, engineered, composed, parquet etc

As a member of two Online DIY forums we frequently give free advice to any "would be" wooden flooring installer. We do notice there is a lot of confusion about names of products and before we continue with other wooden flooring items we would like to introduce a more righteous terminology in types of floor covering.

The most confusion is about laminated flooring, used by DIY-ers (and even some suppliers) for both Melamine Laminated Flooring (the ‘plastic’ – Melamine’ stuff with only a photo-copy of wood) and for Wood-Engineered and Wood-Veneered flooring (flooring with a solid wood top layer between 0.2mm and 6 – 8mm with a crossed-backing of pine/plywood or mdf).

In the (English) wood-flooring profession laminate is used to describe the Melamine flooring (like Pergo, Quick-step etc).

The term Wood-Veneer is officially only used when the solid wooden top layer has a thickness between 0.2 to 1.5mm but frequently Internet searchers mean all the different types of Wood-Engineered flooring when using this term.
The top layer of this kind of product isn’t sawn, but peeled from the trunk and then glued (under high pressure) to a backing of mostly HDF. Although a very thin layer it is (normally) not of inferior quality. A veneer board can't be sanded though.

Wood-Engineered covers the rest of the ‘engineered’ flooring where the solid wooden top layer is more than 1.5mm thick (and can go up to even 8mm), but has a crossed-backing of a different material than the top layer.
Solid wooden flooring with cross backing of the same wood (to make it more stable) is called ‘composed’ wooden flooring.

Real wood is sometimes used to describe Wood-Engineered and Wood-Veneer flooring as opposed to the Melamine Laminated flooring.

Solid wood T&G boards: these are made out of the same material (Oak, Maple etc) with Tongue and Groove on all four sides (although some manufacturers/saw-mills still create them only on the two long sides).
Parquet or overlay: unfinished Solid planks/strips/tiles/blocks without T&G, which are either glued and nailed on a solid mosaic (5-7 ‘fingers’-tiles) or plywood/chipboard subfloor or glued directly on a concrete/screed underfloor (like mosaic tiles, herringbone or other patterns). The planks/strips/tiles/blocks are 6 to 10mm thick and are known in The Netherlands and Belgium as Overlay floors.

Miss-use of Parquet term. Where in the mainland of Europe Parquet (Parket) means wooden flooring (any wooden flooring, from solid, wood-engineered to wood block design patterns like herringbone) in the UK the term Parquet is commonly used to describe the latter: wood blocks in any design pattern.
We have noticed however that some manufacturers and retailers use the term Parquet in the UK to promote the 3-strip Wood-Engineered (or 3-strip Wood-Veneer) flooring, which does lead to disappointed customers expecting a real (solid) ‘old-fashioned’ parquet floor instead of the T&G (or click) boards they are in fact purchasing.

Wooden Flooring Tips for New Builds

Buying a home is a milestone for most of us; be it finally getting onto the property ladder, up-grading or down-grading. For the next 25 - 30 years East Kent is a designated growth-area and over 30.000 new homes will be build in and around Ashford alone. Nowadays most new builds come with a choice in floorcovering, from 'standard' wall-to-wall carpet to (mostly) Wood-Veneer or if you're lucky even proper Wood-Engineered flooring. Only, most larger developers restrict the actual choice you have: they send you to one flooring supplier where you can decide between Oak, Beech or perhaps Maple 3-strip. If you want something else or a better/higher quality you have to prepare yourself for a 'hard struggle'.

Our own experience has taught us that 'stubborn' new home buyers usual get what they want in the end: i.e. the Natural Wooden Flooring from the company they select themselves and where the difference in price between the 'standard' fixed choice and the final choice isn't (on average) that much. If the developer/builder agrees to it, the alternative choice can be included (and paid for) before the exchange date, resulting in the new home owner not having to pay the VAT on the wooden flooring nor on the installation costs.

A word of advice: when buying a new build home on a large housing estate it's better to wait with installing Natural Wooden Flooring until all building works (including the final road surface) is completely finished. Imagine the 'sanding-effect' on your newly installed floor!
In these situations we advice a cheap (and cheerful) carpet, not too light in colour, until all 'dust has settled'. Or, if you insist, on a wooden flooring with an oil finish (instead of a lacquer finish).