How To Lay A Woodstrip Floor?

Wooden floors are among the most naturally attractive forms of flooring

To meet the growing trends where a lot of people like to have wood flooring in their home. There is a practical solution which is long, narrow strips of wood which is  1cm [3/4 inches] thick which are in a kit form which are easy to lay on any sub-floor.

It is made from solid wood or with a pine, oak, or beech veneer on a particle board core and the strips are tongued-and-grooved on their edges so they simply slot together. They can be secured by nailing to a wooden sub-floor, fixed with clips set in a groove on the underside of the boards or glue firmly with PVA or wood glue if your floor is concrete.

The wood strips comes in a variety of lengths and widths.

The next  thing you need to do is to measure the area that you are going to do and then  figure out the amount that you need to get.

Good Ground works

First, check on the condition of  your sub-floor.
On wooden floorboards, if your floor boarding are sound the only thing you will need to hammer home projecting nail heads and then you will need to sand smooth any raised areas. Now if your sub floor is poor, you will have to put plywood to create a smooth, level surface. If you have PVC or linoleum floor coverings can remain in place.

If you have a concrete sub floor you have to make sure that there is no dampness found. You can check this by taping a piece of glass to the floor for several days. If you find moisture collecting on the underside, you definitely have a problem and this requires specialist attention. Filled all of the irregularities and clean the floor surface thoroughly. Then give it a continuous waterproof coating either with  a polyurethane sealing compound or sheets of thick plastic foil.

Before you lay strip flooring down, you should put a layer of insulating material in between.

When you are laying your new floors, you need to take off all your doors of their hinges, because the new flooring will raise the floor level up.

Wood expands and contracts with changes in temperature and humidity.

Before you start laying your flooring down you need to store them in unopened packages at room temperatures for at least 48 hours before you start laying your wood floor.

MATERIALS

Hammer, chisel and a small crowbar, fine-toothed saw and fretsaw. A tamping block which is made from a piece of softwood. Spacer blocks of wood about 1 cm thick., pencil, ruler and adjustable template, PVA or wood glue, clips, or nails, depending on the fixing method

Laying Wood strip Flooring

1. You will need to place the first board with the grooves  edge to the wall. Then place spacer blocks, cut to the size of the expansion gap required, between the board and the wall.

2. Keep laying the boards, end to end, to complete the first row. Fit them dry first and trim the end planks so that it falls 1 cm from the wall. You  will need to place the last board so that the tongue lies next to tongue, with the end butted to the wall and a spacer block in position. Then mark where you need to saw and cut to the length.

3. If you are using secret nailing, you need to hammer the fixing pins at an angle of 45 degree down  through the tongues into the wooden sub-floor, but make sure you do not over hammer or overdrive the nails so the tongues do not split. Nails should be spaced 12 inches apart. Always punch the heads below the surface.

3B.  Now if you are using fixing clips, the method of fixing depends on the system. One way is you tap the clips into the grooves in the underside of the boards at whatever the intervals are, and lay them against the spacer blocks.

3C. If you are using gluing, you need to glue the ends as they butt together and PVA adhesive is what you need to use. Apply a little amount of the adhesive to each plank and tap them into position. Wipe the excess adhesive away with a damp cloth.  Use a string line to check to make sure the boards are straight and if they are not, then adjust. Remove, or add spacer blocks.

4. Keep laying the subsequent rows, with the joints staggered which means they should not be any closer than 12 inches  apart. Start the sector row with the piece of board left over from the first one. Then tap into place with your hammer and then tamp block and secure them as before .

5. When you get to the last row, you need to measure the plank of the wood strip to fill the gap that you have remaining by placing one board on top of the  one before and  another with the tongue butting against the wall.

6.  When you are easing a plank into place, you need to use your ruler and a pencil and  mark  along the cutting line. Then saw it where you need to and ease  into place using the bolster and hammer the boards in tight.

7. To replace the skirting  board, you have to remove the spacer blocks, then replace skirting or fit beading strip to cover the gap.

SUMMARY

Natural wood is a practical and a good-looking choice of flooring for any room. Wood strip is easy to clean, so this makes it very hygienic. This flooring can hold up to non-stop household traffic. So with the way wood flooring looks is the way wood flooring looks is another good reasoning to have it.