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Has anyone seen/done solid hardwood tongue & groove boards as a floating floor? I'm told this isn't recommended because the joints are likely to open up during the sanding & polishing, or at least leave hairline cracks in the polish due to subsequent movement. What about nailing the boards onto a plywood base to keep them in place after laying? I'm keen on this because I could put a cushioned underlay down and have a bit of 'give' in the floor.
Thank you
What are you laying them on?
You might as well use spit to try and hold moving Jarrah on ply. Nothing short of a 50 mm nail into some 50 mm battens is really going to hold it and even then there is no guarantee. If the boards decide to bow along the flat they can separate the tongue out of the groove or if the wood is even slightly weakened along the tongue and groove that can cause edge bonding . This happens when the floor sealer sticks lengths of the tongue or groove to the other board and produces a bond that is stronger than the wood. If/when the board shrinks/moves the tongue or groove on one board then may split off leaving cracks. This plus shrinkage and cupping happened to the floor in our family room and we just had the edge bonded cracks filled and resealed and even though the shrinkage gaps still show removing cupping and the edge bonding cracks improved the floor enormously.
BTW can recommend a really good floor sander sealer chappie - I'd post some photos but photo loading doesn't seem to work for some reason.
Bob
I don't have space for battens; the slab is the same level throughout and the rest of the house is being tiled (approx 15mm thickness). So I guessd we'll have to go with direct fix. I'd like to speak to your finisher person.
Thanks
Pete
With that sort of height limitation, I think you should be looking at engineered flooring. Jarrah veneer on on a ply or MDF substrate.
[QUOTE=peteirons;2059585]Bob
I don't have space for battens; the slab is the same level throughout and the rest of the house is being tiled (approx 15mm thickness). So I guessd we'll have to go with direct fix. I'd like to speak to your finisher person. /QUOTE]
Too bad about the space.
I agree with Ian, it sounds like you will have to go with a veneered board.
The floor sander is Artisan Floor Sanding (Gary) 0417178 812
He was not the cheapest quote but very good to deal with and did a great job compared to our 2 previous experiences in this regard.
If you speak to him face to face ask him to show you the photos of some of floor sanding "stuff ups" photos he was called in to fix.
Gary is very knowledgable about wood and flooring so may be able to advise you on the type and laying of the floor.
Family Room Before:
Attachment 425643
After: This was the floor made out of new "seconds grade" boards back in 1995. Many of the boards had cracked due to edge bonding and had badly cupped.
The cupping was so bad that as much as 2mm of depth has to be sanded off the middle of the boards in some areas to get the boards flat
Attachment 425644
Kitchen. These were recycled boards
Attachment 425645
Dining room before - can you tell where I used to sit to browse the forum?
These are 100 year old original house floorboards.
Attachment 425646
After
Attachment 425647
Our experience with putting wood floors. Parts of this story are not very relevant to this thread but, I think, may help.
Our house is built on a concrete slab. There was wall-to-wall carpet in the living room and bedrooms, and tiles in kitchen and entry when we bought it. We got rid of all that. We were very lucky to "get into" turpentine wood through our local timber yard (to build a wood shed)... Looking for the wood we wanted on the floor, visiting a few places selling floorboards, and we end up getting turpentine floorboards (1 in thick or so). Total surface was 140 m2, plywood (+concrete sheets in some places) underneath, heavy screws and nails. And the floor is ready for finishing . That took a whole week. The guy (very very good, with one assistant, a big name in our area) who did the finishing (sanding and oiling) worked very hard (the finishing was done manually). He was very impressed (but not very happy :D) by the wood. The floor can be easily fixed for scratched (NO WAX, NO URETHANE used), quick sanding and new coat of oil. Absolutely no movement so far, 2 years down. And this floor is just amazing.
We had floating boards in an a previous apartment. Sort of cheap, but floors started moving within a year.
I don't want to get into an oil versus other finish argument but our experience with oiling Jarrah boards from old/large trees is that oiling makes them go darker than a non-oil finish. In some cases where the wood is a deep chocolate brown they go nearly black and some grain detail is lost. The floor finisher we contracted also used a special sealer that retained the colour closer to the original. The same problem does not seem to apply anywhere near as much to other especially lighter timbers.