Fitting Real Wood Floor onto Concrete....help!!

[francesca]

I have just bought 23 packs of solid oak flooring (3 strip planks) that are tongue and groove. It says that glue is required for fitting. They are to be laid onto a concrete floor in the living room but I am unsure whether I need to get underlay and how the floor is actually fixed to the concrete?

Im not doing this myself but getting someone into do it. Do I need to buy a particular type of underlay and what glue do I need to buy?

Any help or advice would be great.

Thanks

Fran

[Teabag]

See you have quite a few views no replies so heres the limited advise I can offer....
The flooring you have baught needs to stay in the room (if possible) to acclimatise to the room tempreture, this will help reduce shrinkage after the boards have been installed, I would assume you need to use P.V.A woodworking glue to join the boards,
As for the underlay question I'm not sure... what thickness is the oak flooring? do the instructions say its "a floating floor"? if so then you would be preferable to use an underlay. "If" its ment to be a "floating floor" then you dont "fix" it to the concrete, its just laid and is allowed to expand and contract as one piece.
This also means you need to leave an expansion gap around the room. others may advise on the size is required to be left from each wall.
as I have not installed a floating floor for years.

Hope it helps.

[Hoovie]

I installed an Engineered Wood flooring on a whole ground floor which required glue, but the glue was to glue the planks together usually I think, rather then the planks to a base (basically squeeze it into the groove and then knock the tounge into it and clamp together while you do the next row)
I would go along with Teabags comments in just about every respect, except on the glue side ..... you can usually get a glue specifically designed for this type of flooring that is also colour matched, so any dings or edges that don't meet (most likely to happen with a real wood product compared to laminate) are 'automatically' taken care of - I think most standard glues tend to dry white which would be unsightly and mean extra work to mask later.

[bobbie-dazzler]

You have put a membrane down as well, and make sure your floor is level, if not you can buy some levelling compound which does the job very nicely.

[Teabag]

Thanks Hoovie
However, Regards the glue and drying white... I use pva everyday and the stuff I use dries clear, however it does give the appearence of being black when sandwiched between 2 bits of wood due to light refraction...

[francesca]

Thank you all very much for your replies. I managed to clear out homebase of their vapour barrier underlay, corking edging, beeding, glue etc!!
Got a guy fitting it today who said he was going to do the floating thing, leaving and gap all the way round that will be filled with the cork and then covered with the edging.
Glad to hear that he seems to know what hes doing as it sounds exactly like what you have all suggested!

Fingers crossed that it looks ok!

Thanks again. Will try and post a pic once finished.

[EJJ150847]

When I had the floor laid in our Kitchen I removed the skirting as I hate the little quadrant thingy thats normally put on.

Mind you £840 for 30 Sq Mtr of Quickstep supplied and laid with underlay, 2m x 0.6m coir doormat, I thought was a fair price, 2 fitters 6 hours, any comments??

John

[bobbie-dazzler]

I had the engineered oak one put down, it came in single planks, bevelled edges, will upload a pic later and show you, got it from a major supplier on the internet, I think ours was 27sqr metres, but he had to level some of the concrete floor first, but it does look lovely.

Its called, 'kahrs' england, or london, its a fairly recent one, will find a pic of it laid.

[bobbie-dazzler]

Here's the pic of the floor, well, part of the floor, I havent actually got a pic of the whole thru lounge, but I could show you in two halves lol.


[img=http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/1160/olympusvarious11071as9.th.jpg]