Fitting Oak Flooring to concrete floors

panlid · Post by **panlid** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 7:38 am

tim'll fix it wrote:you want to alter the floor height I would fix ply wood down to the floor to the required height, ply comes in 6, 9, 12, 15, 18mm etc

the float an engineered floor over it

i fitted some teak engineered floor from boen parkett

http://www.boen.com/

nice stuff

the problem with solid wood is you need to fix it really without gluing as it twists, cups, warps, shrinks, etc
if you use too small nails it wont hold, but hey lifes a compromise if you know the risks then its up to you

tim if his floor was a good hieght i would be telling him to glue it straight to the floor. this is the best method. howdens even sell the glue for there timber floors now.

Edz · Post by **Edz** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 8:53 am

Thanks guys. I have no worries about pipes under the floor as I put the floor down and know what is in it. As for the battens, I had intended to screw them. What are the formica spacers for?

I thought that I could give the smaller nails a chance by:

a) battening at 400 ctrs
b) using window packers, and a spirit level, take great care to make sure that the battens are dead flat. That way I wouldn't have to rely on the nails actually holding down the boards too much.

Would this improve my chances?

panlid · Post by **panlid** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 5:52 pm

edz that was what the formica peices were for. leveling. they are really thin so you can get a good flat surface.

Edz · Post by **Edz** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:32 am

Hi Panlid

I thought that might be what you meant. I'm thinking that a nice flat surface will be fairly critical for this application.

Question: Is well seasoned quality oak likely to move that much? i.e. warping and twisting? Clearly unless it is fairly stable 1 1/4" nails wouldn't work even on a flat floor.

I suppose that the worst case scenario is that I might have to sink a few screws into the boards should they start playing up in the fullness of time.

panlid · Post by **panlid** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:23 pm

i think seasoned oak is fine. you know what your doing now, stop thinking too much and get on with it. i have done some things that i worked out on my own over the years. if i listened to too much advice i would probably talked myself out of doing it in the first place.
sometimes advice is just complicating things. sometimes it aint. it is up to you to use your common sense and work out which is which. trust yourself.

let us know how you get on.

Edz · Post by **Edz** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 6:32 pm

Cheers Panlid.

You are dead right of course. I will crack on and let you know how it all goes!

gazza1169 · Post by **gazza1169** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 6:06 pm

hi don't know if you have already laid this but.....................
laying your floor on 25mm battons should be fine lay on top of visqueen don't fix the bato n leave it floating and then secret nail the floor we have used a similar method on a few sports halls although the battons had a rubber/foam strip on the to aid a slight sprung floor.

you can also adhere the floor directly to the concrete sub floor using t2 and t52 or lecol providing you stableize the surface with a suitable epoxy first
best of luck

Edz · Post by **Edz** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 6:12 pm

Thanks for that. What expoy would you suggest if I went down that road?

gazza1169 · Post by **gazza1169** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 6:15 pm

is your concrete bare or ashfelted?

Edz · Post by **Edz** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 7:43 pm

Bare.

BTW and while I am thinking of it ..

Possibly a question for the general or plastering forum, but ..

Having already established by talking to you guys that a 1" floor screed is possible and not too thin (slate tiles going down on this!), what about laying quarry tiles ? Could I lay them onto bare concrete? Or maybe a thin layer of the Screwfix self levelling screed?

Come to think of it, why do we need screed at all if we are not laying carpet? My building drawings shows 3" of floor screed. Why would I want that? If anyone knows any of the answers perhaps I could be enlightened! Thanks again all.

Jaeger_S2k · Post by **Jaeger_S2k** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 8:17 pm

Damp Proofing, Insulation from Cold.

Edz · Post by **Edz** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 8:39 pm

Thanks Jaeger.

Would I therefore be correct in saying that as my dpm is between my blinding and insulation, and that I have 75mm kingspan under my 6" thick reinforced concrete, that screed or no screed in my case doesn't make much diff?

tim'll fix it · Post by **tim'll fix it** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 11:00 pm

screed works much better in thicker quanitities. 1 inch will be more prone to break

gazza1169 · Post by **gazza1169** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 6:53 pm

Edz wrote:Bare.

BTW and while I am thinking of it ..

Possibly a question for the general or plastering forum, but ..

Having already established by talking to you guys that a 1" floor screed is possible and not too thin (slate tiles going down on this!), what about laying quarry tiles ? Could I lay them onto bare concrete? Or maybe a thin layer of the Screwfix self levelling screed?

Come to think of it, why do we need screed at all if we are not laying carpet? My building drawings shows 3" of floor screed. Why would I want that? If anyone knows any of the answers perhaps I could be enlightened! Thanks again all.

as your floor is bare concrete then you would be best using
F76 which is two part epoxy resin made by ball use the hardner and it will go off in about 4 hours
if your sub floor isn't smooth then throw over a latex screed ie (self leveling compound) but make sure you us latex not a water mix
you wont have any probs unless your sub floor hasn't been damp proofed in the first place good luck Garry...