Hi all We have just got some solid oak flooring from Direct Wood Flooring and arrived yesterday. Has they 4 way click system with it. Linked below is the product: trade select light almond solid oak. We are going to be installing this over existing floorboards. These aren’t perfectly level as expected. As the floor is the ground floor, we need a suitable underlay in order to prepare the floor before putting the solid oak down. We have seen some fibre boards which offer a good TOG rating on eBay: item numbe: 323010774186 We were hoping these would be good enough for levelling small imperfections out on existing floor first. However, we locked a few pieces of the oak floor together and put it down on our existing laminate floor in the kitchen and noticed there was a bit of flex in it where it was just sat on, we tried straight over the floorboards and was even worse. So brings us to ask what is the best method underlay, surface preparation and method of fixing the oak floor down. (We want to avoid glue for service pipes underneath) Couple ideas we thought of were thin plywood down on top of old floorboards to level the floor, then thin membrane between the plywood and oak floor to dampen the noise. Alternatively, fibre board using the above boards on top of the floorboards and oak floor on top of that. But would the fibre board be strong enough to stop any flex in the wood? Also, DWF state the floor doesn’t need to be screwed/nailed down. Which seems a little different. Would it be recommended screwing the boards down with 1-2 screws per board to hold it down sturdy? Also, would there be any I’ll effects screwing through the fibre board if a screw in the board was required? Thanks on advice for any advice. Chris Sorry can’t link as not enough posts
You can't Float a solid wood floor don't care what it says, its wrong. The subfloor requires correct prep / moisture reading etc building paper then 9mm-12mm ply over the subfloor then fully bond onto ply.
Thanks for your reply Thought as much regarding floating it. Do you know how much heat the plywood would keep in? Will those small headed screws be good for securing it to the ply?
Question: Q: We plan to lay the solid oak flooring with super-clic system on top of a existing wooden floorboards with 5mm fibre-board underlay. How would you recommend the solid oak flooring be laid? Floating or secret screwed down? Ideally, we want to avoid gluing it for any service in future. Thanks Answer: A: Hello, Thank you for getting in touch. Because you're planning to use a click system flooring. You can go ahead and lay the flooring directly to the sublfloor without the use of nailing of gluing the flooring down Please ensure you have a 10mm, 15mm exspansion gap to allow the wood to breathe without damaging.We would advise the use of a suitable underlay prior to laying the wood flooring. Please seek adivise from a professional fitter prior to laying thr boards. We hope this helps. Please let me know if we can assist you further. Kind Regards, Owen Not exactly convincing
You really should take a moisture reading of your subfloor before installing a new solid oak floor as it’s a ground floor. To Make sure you have the right conditions for solid oak. Solid must be fixed. Full stick down or secret nailed with T or L cleats or tongue tight screws. If you float it it will more than likely buckle somewhere as it will be constantly moving around. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Will the Elka Tongue Tite screws be good enough for holding it down? Plan now seems to be level existing floor off with some 9mm plywood screwed down, then probably run a thin sheet of the foam stuff between that and the oak floor on top and screw the boards down.
Not sure about the foam between oak and subfloor but apparently the elka tongue tight screws are very good Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Maybe put the foam between the subfloor and the ply if you really want to. It’s not something I’ve ever done personally. Again, make sure it’s completely dry first Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
this man knows a lot about wood and i would take his advice. A lot of places sell wood marked as solid and say you can float it. But all solid wood has to be fixed down ?
