Decorating & Renovating
kaylie622
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
DIY engineered hardwood questions
Three questions:
1. I know there are varying qualities of engineered hardwood -- what factors make one "high" quality?
2. I assured H last night that plenty of people DIY engineered floors. If you did, how easy/hard did you find it compared to other projects?
3. I know you're supposed to run the boards parallel to the longest side of the room. If we're doing most of our first floor (all connected) but the living room, foyer and dining room are long north to south and the family room is long east to west, do I run them all N to S or do I change direction when I get to the family room?
Re: DIY engineered hardwood questions
1) The hardness of the wood veneer on top. The number of layers and type of finish on top. Many people think the thickness of that veneer is important but like I said in this post yesterday it really doesn't matter because you'll never be sanding that layer down.
2) I'll leave this one for people who have installed prefinished floors.
3) That is not what should determine how you run the boards. The boards should be run perpendicular to the floor joists below. Period. Running them parallel to the floor joists will lead to more expansion and contraction and bigger gaps between your boards.
Thank you! You're always so helpful with this stuff.
This might sound stupid, but will I be able to see the floor joists when we pull up the carpet? How will I know which way they run?
We did it in 2 rooms and are starting another room prob this weekend. It's not hard but it's time consuming. How are you laying the floor - click together, glue together, or glue down? Click together is easiest, glue together is a PITA (but that's what we're doing) and glue down IMO is the most difficult and messy.
Also, dealing with the subfloor was prob the hardest part. Make sure you do lots of research on the flooring that will be underneath, how level it is, it's access to moisture and how it's impacted by what level of the house it is on. DIY on a project like this is definitely not as simple as just slapping together a bunch of pieces of wood, there is a lot of prep work involved to make sure the floor is not going to fail.
I was thinking that glue together would be our best bet for stability without turning it into a complete disaster area.
Did you use any particular websites that explained the subfloor prep? I know it's plywood and we have a full basement. There are a few spots that feel "popped" under the carpet (sorry, don't know how else to explain it). When I step on it, it makes a noise and I can feel it "pop" down. Perhaps a warped board underneath?
1. I know there are varying qualities of engineered hardwood -- what factors make one "high" quality? Thickness
2. I assured H last night that plenty of people DIY engineered floors. If you did, how easy/hard did you find it compared to other projects? Our flooring wasn't click & lock (I dont know if any engineered hardwood is?), it was tongue and groove though, and very hard to piece together. We started our install w/a nailer and it wasn't going so well so we switched to glue. The glue worked fine but you have to apply a nice thick layer (and will go through tons of it), and make sure your subflooring is perfectly flat or you will hear all kinds of pops and cracks when you walk.
3. I know you're supposed to run the boards parallel to the longest side of the room. If we're doing most of our first floor (all connected) but the living room, foyer and dining room are long north to south and the family room is long east to west, do I run them all N to S or do I change direction when I get to the family room? You are supposed to run them perpendicular to the flooring joists (and regardless, I wouldn't change the direction in adjoining rooms anyway).
If the subfloor pops or moves it might be a simple fix that would involve adding a few screws to the plywood. They can become loose over the years causing the floor to creak.
I would just do a google search for subfloor preparation for hardwood. There are lots of sites and forums.
If your basement is completely finished you should be able to tell the direction of the floor joists based on the screw pattern in the underlayment. If you have two layers for your subfloor it may be harder to tell. You may have to pull up a section to confirm the direction. Also looking at the shape and size of the house you should be able to determine the direction of the floor joists (ie. in a long rectangular house the floor joists will be spanning across the short width and you'll have a beams hidden in soffits going the long direction in the basement).
In general a good subfloor by today's standards has both an underlayment (plywood that sits on the floor joists) and an overlayment/subfloor/second layer of plywood on top of that. The underlayment will be running perpendicular to the floor joists. Should be nailed/screwed every 6" on the edges and every 8" in a grid pattern through the center. Ideally it's glued to the floor joists as well with a quality subfloor glue. The overlayment is then run perpendicular to the underlayment (which means it's running with the floor joists). It should be heavily glued and screwed. Again every 6" on the edges and 8" in the center. Nails shouldn't be used for that layer. The underlayment should be 1/2"-3/4" plywood with exterior grade adhesive and a B or C level sanded finish. The overlayment should be tongue and groove plywood with exterior grade adhesive and a B or C finish. It can vary in size but tongue and groove only comes in larger thickness plywood (3/4" is the cut off but some go down to 1/2"). There are many variations of this as different carpenters have many different preferences. Some say the T&G should go on the underlayment with just the butt joint on top. Ideally you want the thicker plywood on the bottom if you're using two different thicknesses.
Of course that is all ideal and who knows what you currently have. With "pops" in the floor it sounds like nail pops which means you probably have rim shank nails instead of screws. Not good but very common in new construction homes because it's much quicker to use a nail gun than to screw down the overlayment. It's a simple fix when the carpet is off just walk around and add screws to the areas that squeak, pop, or flex a lot. Then just remove or pound in the nails. If you have an underlayment underneath it doesn't matter where the screws are. But you will want screws that are long enough to reach through both your overlayment and most your underlayment. You might have to do some exploratory drilling to determine that. A standard construction screw will work...the ones that accept the square head tips are best as they don't wear out the bits near as much as phillips or the star shape.
If you have a particle board floor it's up to you if you think it's worth keeping or replacing. It's not near as good as plywood but as long as the underlayment is plywood it should be OK. What you will want to do is calculate how much your floor is going to flex (this is what one of the PP was probably mentioning as far as floor prep). If your layers are too thin it could be an issue for HW floors. It is normally the most important for tile and not really HW but it's worth taking a stab at. Here is a simple calculator to determine the deflection. It will give you an L rating and your HW manufacturer should have a minimum rating the subfloor needs to have. Odds are it won't be a problem.