Hello I'm a DIY'er (pretty experienced and generally quite handy) and I'm looking to lay about 30m2 of new oak wood-block parquet once my subfloor is all ready to go (nearly there!) The blocks are around 2.5 inches wide and around 14 inches long, and are tongued and grooved. My intention is to lay them in a simple 'brick bond' pattern. My question is - how to start? Here's what I'm thinking of doing - I'd be grateful for any comments, input and suggestions. Before I start laying I intend to leave the blocks in the room for several days - I was thinking 2 days in their packaging, then a further 4 plus days removed from their packaging and stacked up neatly. Then: 1. Find the mid-point along the room's length and chalk a straight line along it. 2. Measure accurately from the mid-point line and mark a second paralell line close to the far long wall (ie not the one with the door in), probably just less than a block's width from the wall. 3. Dry-lay blocks across the width of the room to check that I'm not going to end up with a daft sliver of cut blocks along the wall at either side of the room's length. 4. Lay a straight edge (batten or similar) along the line that I've chalked near to the wall, on the wall side of the line. 5. Glue down a line of blocks along the straight edge with the grooves facing into the room and the tongues against the batten, taking care to remove any adhesive that's not covered by blocks. 6. Leave this line of blocks to set firm. 7. Continue laying blocks from this first line back into the room towards the near wall, following my brick-bond pattern. 8. When the floor is set solid, finish off around the edges with cut blocks as required, taking care of course to leave an expansion gap of at least 15mm. 9. Put up skirtings (oak, 20mm thick). 10. Finish floor and skirtings with hard oil. 11. Try to stop my one-year-old daughter ruining my nice new floor! Cheers Dom
With a brick pattern there's not really the need to start in the middle, that's more common with a herringbone pattern to make sure you end both sides with the same length of blocks in the last row before the border. Slight difference in length at the end of the room will not be very noticeable and you might not even need a border either, because of the pattern (it could look odd when the last one or two rows lengthways suddenly have a different pattern or are you only thinking about a border at the end walls?) How thick are the blocks and what's your subfloor made of? what adhesive are you planning to use and do you have the correct notched trowel? Just a few questions so we can advice better. Best is to finish the floor completely (sanding and oiling) before installing your skirtingboards back.
I actually wasn't going to start laying in the middle but along my second paralell line close to the far wall. Only reason being that I figured it might be easier to lay almost the whole floor by slotting tongues into grooves rather than 50% of it like that and 50% pushing grooves over tongues (as you'd surely have to do if you started in the middle?) But maybe this doesn't matter? Also, by working from the far side backwards I would never be standing on the newly laid parquet while working. Wood-u-like - I'm not doing a traditional border, all the blocks will be laid in the same direction. But unless I'm very lucky I'm sure I'll have to cut some blocks along their length to finish off at the edges of the room. Subfloor is solid concrete/screed, levelled and with an epoxy DPM applied. Adhesive will probably be Rewmar MS Polymer, applied with their own 6mm ve-notched spreader. The blocks are 18mm thick. Point taken about finishing the floor before putting up the skirtings - sounds sensible. Many thanks for your expert advice! Dom
Sorry, miss understood and thought you were going from the middle - which as you say with a brick pattern and blocks with T&G's is not that practical. Don't spread out too much adhesive at once - you'll only end up having to scrape it from the floor when it gets hard and could create ridges = uneven floor in the end and much more to sand off. Also don't worry too much if you seem to go out of line, not every block will be exactly the same size and 9 times out of 10 the line will "correct" itself again (strange but true). If you would force it then that's the point where you run into trouble later (see remark about strange but true ;-)) Have you got a decent sanding machine (don't use a drum sander from a hire centre if you can avoid it). See here for other "issues" with sanding: http://manuals.woodyoulike.co.uk/spaces ... nd-sanding
Thanks wood-u-like - more good tips. The blocks come finished to quite a high standard (although not oiled), and being new not reclaimed height differences should hopefully be minimal. I'm hoping to get away with 'spot sanding' as it were just on any areas that need it (eg glue snots). I definitely don't intend to use a drum sander (aka floor ruiner!) Dom
Would you mind we borrow your expression? :lol: (floor ruiner) Suggest you try a trio sander for a very neat and fine finish after installation and before applying the oil. DIY-client of ours had tremendous result with it: http://faq.woodyoulike.co.uk/2010/06/cr ... locks.html
Be my guest! Trio sander could be just the thing. Many thanks to both Wood-u-like and Matt for their generous advice. I feel more confident now to tackle the job. When I eventually get it done I'll let you know how it went Dom
The room including the floor is finally finished and, though I say so myself, it's looking lovely! Many thanks for the invaluable help and advice I've received on this and other forums (DIYnot) - Matty and Wood-u-like in particular. I'll take a couple of pics and post them here as soon as I can. I would describe the overall quality of the floor finish as 'good DIY' - there are a couple of things that I'd pick up on if a pro had done it for me, but as it's my first (and last?!) wood floor I'm very happy with it. A couple of observations and queries... I got the subfloor pretty flat and level before I started laying the parquet. But it could have been even smoother! As a result I got around half the advertised coverage from the adhesive, which was expensive. However, using a decent quality leveller to face off the subfloor first would not have been loads cheaper, so I'm not losing too much sleep over this. I glued it down using Rewmar MS Polymer, this is low hazard, high quality and very versatile. I would say it's well worth looking into if you're a pro - these new generation modified silicone polymers are technically very advanced if you look at the datasheets. Prices vary considerably, but 16kg tubs can be had for about £70 inc VAT if you shop around (try ebay). BUT - I suggest using the 12kg pack that comes as two 6kg foil pouches - much less wastage due to the adhesive skinning and setting in the pot (it's moisture-cured). I particularly recommend this option if you're a DIY'er. 12kg packs can be had for around £60 inc VAT and postage if you shop around. I tried to get hold of a Trio sander, large belt sander or similar to hire, but nothing doing in Swansea. So I hired a Hire-Tech push-along orbital sander. I started with 80 grit and worked down to 180 grit. It was almost totally dust-free, didn't take too long and gave a good swirl-free finish. In hindsight I maybe should have started with 60 grit, but then I was never trying to achieve a 'laminate-smooth' finish. The orbital was surpisingly good and very easy for a DIY'er to use, with no chance of ruining your floor, but it wouldn't be up to the job of re-sanding an old floor. After much research, including reading an interesting forum debate elsewhere between Wood-u-like and someone in the USA, I opted to finish the floor with Bona Mega, a water-borne polyurethane (sorry Woody!). I used the silk-matt finish, three coats over a coat of Bona Prime base coat, and I'm very pleased with the finish. Very hard wearing, looks great, doesn't just look like cheap laminate. It's an impressively high-tech product. Not cheap mind. Two questions for the pros: 1. Expansion gaps - I undertstand the need for a large expansion gap on a floating floor - the whole floor effectively becomes monolithic and can expand and contract as one. But on a full glue-down, surely it could never expand so much as to come anywhere close to filling that edge gap (13mm approx)? Because if it did it would mean the blocks at the edges effectively shifting sideways by around 10mm - this would surely just shear them off the subfloor? I really hope that doesn't happen!! 2. Edge trims (fireplace hearth etc) - I think I saw in another post that Wood-u-like recommended using an edging strip fixed to the wood floor with tiny pins. But surely something that is fixed to the floor itself and butting up against something solid will effectively prevent the floor from expanding and render the gap below it pointless? For this reason I used the 'moulding' type trims that have a sort of 'hockey stick' profile. I left an increased gap to accommodate them - then glued them down to the subfloor. They still leave an expansion gap but cover it up neatly. Nothing is fixed to the wood floor itself, so it's free so move beneath the lip of the trim. Mind you they're not cheap either! Anyway, interested to hear any thoughts on the above points, many thanks again for the good advice, let's just hope it all stays down and my two year old doesn't ruin it! (she's banned from the room until she's 25) Dom
Hi Dom Looking forward to those pictures! That discussion with the US bloke (think he even came from Canada) was years ago, he really went into the chemical particulars of everything! (Never saw/heard him again though ;-)) Finishes is down to personal choice anyway (and with sanding down to 180 the surface would have been too smooth/closed for oil anyway). As for expansion gaps: yes you're right. Only for solid Oak floorboards - no matter how they are installed - must you leave wider expansion gaps (based on the width of the floor). With wood-engineered and parquet blocks a smaller one (but minimum 10mm) should suffice. The beading we use is pinned down to the floor indeed, but with tiny pins (not nails!) so in the event the floor expands these pins lift up without blocking the movement of the floor. Many of our clients prefer to pin them back down if they lift over having scotias/quadrants. Therefore, if the fireplace surround is higher than the floor we use beading there too (if lower, we use an End thresholds, a kind of L-profile) Hope that clears that up ;-)
That makes sense. I wouldn't want to put this theory to test, but my guess would be that on a fully glued down wood-block floor you could get away with a very small expansion gap, as it would only really need to accommodate expansion/contraction by the outer rows of blocks. Inner rows come up against their glued-down next door neighbour when they try to expand! I know modern adhesive is flexible, but it's not that flexible (modulus around 5-7% I'd guess) But I can't see any point in reducing the gap - you'd just use more flooring products! 18mm plus skirting (or quadrant) should always cover it up fine. BTW congrats on your recent award! Dom
If you put it to the test, and leave a tiny expansion gap then increase the air humidity you can wait for everything to come up ;-) Wood works - we recently read about a demolition company using a beam of wood to crumble down two opposite walls, insert the beam between the two walls, add water and bam there they go! You are right, no need to shrimp on gaps - they are there for a very good reason. With solid floorboards we always recommend to use thicker skirtingboards (20 - 22mm) 'cos the floor can also shrink. Thanks for your well wishes on our reward, we are rather of proud of it (and only knew about it when the local posty brought the framed award in his mail bag)
I still think that on a full glue-down, for the floor to come anywhere near filling a 10mm expansion gap then the outer row of boards/blocks would have to have moved so much, pushed out by the inner rows of blocks expanding, that it would have lifted as a result of shear stress long before it came into contact with the wall. But I think we both agree this is a pointless theoretical argument that no one in their right mind would want to put to the test! Shrinkage - I didn't really think of that! If it does shrink to the extend that the gap becomes visible I'll have to put some quadrant up I guess. Demolition - did they really do this? Because although in theory it could work (they used to cut millstones out of bedrock in rural/coastal Ireland using this principle), as wood only really expands across the grain you'd need a very very wide beam! Or did they maybe rig up something with a width-ways beam in the middle, and two connecting beams lengthways between the central beam and the wall? Anyway, I'm certainly not calling your flooring expertise into question, just interested in the whole subject. Dom
No, just a beam - a large one though (think at least 50 x 50 cm). Walls don't need that much to crumble I think, if enough force is exposed to it at the right point. Wood does expand lengthwise too, only not as much as width ways, but it certainly does. One of the main reasons we always mention the minimum of 10mm gaps everywhere is because some DIY-ers will think (seen it happen) that they don't need a gap at all because for whatever reason they come up with. And some DIY-ers read only what they want to read! Theoretically things work a slightly bit different, but why take chances? We've seen a single board screwed down (to stop it moving up and down) create damage to the whole floor because a screw will not allow the wood to move at all. It's like having the right expansion gap around the whole floor except in front of a fireplace. Then all the other gaps become useless. On another forum there's this story about a person who had the hallway of his second or third floor apartment installed with solid floor boards. Fitter didn't leave wide enough expansion gap (it's a hallway of only 1 meter wide, so why bother?). End of the story: person could not get into his apartment, floor had lifted and blocked the door! Not sure how he got in in the end, presumable with a long ladder and smashing in a window. Gaps, oh so important! Now you know my pet-hate ;-)
