INSTALLATION

Different  types of installation for your wood floor.

FLOATING FLOORS

                                                                                                                                                                        Floating floors are quite common, this is where a roll of underlay is laid out . This is used for HDF laminate floors that normally click together or for a hardwood laminate ( engineered board ) that is glued together on all 4 sides. In some cases solid hardwood can be laid as a floating floor ( if recomended by the manufacturer ).

SECRET NAILED FLOORS.

This method  is used for solid strip floors and also can be used for some hardwood laminates (engineered board ).

20mm solid strip can be nailed direct to joists or battens also they can be nailed onto an existing floor such as old pine floor boards , ply wood sub floor or a chipboard sub floor..

The wording secret nailing is because you will not see the nails that are fixing your floor down , the nails go into the board just above the tongue at and angle of 45 degrees.With the nailing the floor is not only fixed down but the nails will also pull the boards up tight together.

With the secret nailing some times you will need to fit 6mm ply over the top of the old floor boards, two resons for this. First is to make it safe for nailing so NO pipe work or cables are damaged when the nails come out of the bottom of the board ,the second is if you are laying the new floor in the same direction as the old floor .The old floor boards might not be flat so the ply wood gose down to stop any ups and downs in the sub floor making it easier to fit the new floor.

GLUE DOWN  FLOORS

 The  glue down system is for a few reasons. The glue down system can be used  on a screed sub floor to bond solid wood or hard wood laminate (engineered boards) this will give a solid feel under foot.These floors can also be glued down to ply wood or chipboard sub floors .A 20mm block to lay a herrenbone floor will also be glued down. The last one is 6mm-10mm Parquet battens or strip floor , both of these are square edged so these will be fitted to a timber sub floor and not screed . The reason it can only be fitted to a timber sub floor is that when it gets glued it also gets fixed with headless  pins and the pins are used so that the flooring dose not move while the glue is drying.                           

Sometimes a 6mm or 9mm ply wood will need to be installed before the new hardwood floor is installed this is partly to avoid any pipe work under the timber sub floor and partly to flatten the sub floor to take the new floor.

With a new floor that is going to be glued direct to a screeded floor it is sometimes necessary to coat the floor with a liquid DPM this will help if it is a relatively new floor ,dusty or very porous . The DPM (damp proof membrane) will also help the floor to bond to the sub floor.

To see details of sanding and sealing click here.