Wood flooring is one of the most popular flooring choices for many residences. This floor has an inviting look, feels warmer, and is a material that enhances the sale value of the house itself. As well as coming in a visually appealing appearance, hardwood floors also come in a wide selection of basic materials such as maple, oak, and oak are very common and popular wood choices for hardwoods. However, regardless of the material at hand, you should also consider how the wood flooring itself is installed. By installing independently, you can save on existing budgets, the following Hardwood Flooring Installation Tips that you can try!
Hardwood Flooring Installation Tips Make It Easier
Hardwood Flooring Installation Tips Make It Easier
Choose Material
Hardwood floors come with a variety of options from strips and finished boards and laminates or often referred to as engineered wood. You can get a wide selection from thin plywood with a hardwood veneer on top, to strips and also solid wood planks. In the past few years, hardwood flooring installation projects required you to do the sanding independently. However, this year you can get hardwood floors that are ready to install with more color choices and various stains.
In terms of appearance, unfinished or finished hardwoods have tongue edges and grooves on each side. All of them are about 3/4 of an inch thick, with a low display 5/16 to 5/8 inches thick. Hardwood Flooring Installation Tips that should not be missed is that you cannot install it in a damp area because moisture is a natural enemy of hardwood itself.
Make sure you avoid standing water on hardwood floors as this will slowly damage them.
Prepare the Room
Hardwood Flooring Installation The next tip is to take measurements on the width and length of the existing room then the numbers that you can multiply to get the area of the room. When you order wood flooring, we recommend buying an extra 10% to anticipate cutting or installing the wooden floor. Hardwood Flooring Installation These tips aim to secure your hardwood stock of your choosing because when you buy wood on different days, getting the exact same choice can be very difficult!
Stack the wooden floors in the room you are installing to adjust the temperature inside!
Prepare the Lower Floor
You need to know; hardwood floors can be installed on top of old wood or plywood floors. All you need is a floor 3/4 inch thick. When you are working on one layer of wood, then adding a second layer of 1/4 plywood with a commercial substrate will work better.
Use screws or drywall in any mounting project. This process is done to eliminate creaking on your floor, when you find an area of creaking then run the long screw through the floor below and to the beam below.
Steam Barrier
Make sure you have a continuous suction vapor barrier under your floor, the choice of using Felt type asphalt # 15 is our favorite one. However, when humidity is not an important issue for space then using red rosin paper which is used as a slip sheet between the floor and the sub-floor is sufficient for you. This is a way to get rid of the squeak that is present due to friction between the layers of wood.
You just need to roll up the paper and overlap the edges of each sheet by at least about 4 inches. And flatten the mound and use staples to attach the paper to the sub-floor.
Installation
Hardwood Flooring Installation Tips that are recommended are by installing straight joints across the floor beams for maximum stabilization and strengthening. However, aligning the longest dimensions is also a way to give your floors more appeal. This method also makes it easy for you to keep parallel rows of unobstructed walls and install them in straight, longitudinal rows.
You can also nail the floor to the floor beams for stability. When installing in a straight upright manner, marking the floor beams on the sideboards can help!
All hardwood floors can expand and contract when you leave gaps around the room! The width of the gap can be determined by the length of the run and the type of wood you are using. Solid wood has a larger gap than engineered wood because it can expand and shrink.
Wood Floor Installation
To begin an installation project, you can start by laying several rows of loose planks along the length of the floor. Mix planks with several bundles to avoid colors that are too flashy in one bundle with another. Long designs, color variations and patterns, and lumber to give a more harmonized look and minimize confusion when installing strips and boards.
Pick the long planks on the first row and line them up along your chalk line with the tongue of the board facing the center. And place the first plank on that row to make a path parallel to the chalk line on the end wall. Make sure you have a 1/2-inch gap between the rows and the wall to the end!
When you begin the installation, make sure the first row of nails is in the face to minimize the splitting of the wood. Drill pilot holes along the edge of the slit every 10 to 12 inches and nail the top of the starter groove with a 10d finishing nail. Make sure they pass downstairs to the floor beams!
Once the first row is in place, start over with one end and use an electric nail for the next board installation!
Bundled floors are often random in length, long variants will have a scrambled pattern. You should avoid repeating patterns as they can make the floor weaker than it should be. Staggered mounting is best at 5 inches (minimum) spacing. When you find rows that are close to the wall, cut them to a minimum length of 12 inches with a 1/2-inch gap in the wall.
Make sure you don’t cut the paperboard in the floor pattern, the strips of the floor with grooved edges will make them lie flat. Pieces of a board that fit only at the end of the row where the board is finished and do not require polishing.
To find a firmer wood floor, you need to make sure that each plank locks tightly to every row behind it. The slightest gap can be the main cause of losing your floor!
Done and Tidy Up!
The final one in this Hardwood Flooring Installation Tip is to use wood putty to fill any holes in the plank that have been nailed with the face and to make small marks on the installation. Making sure that the putty is stain resistant and matches the color of the floor is the best way to match your look!
