| Questions About Installation of Wood Floors |
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On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 15:21:14 -0800 (PST), "Chris" said: I found your site purely by accident but it was like finding diamonds in the concrete.I am going to think you mean my site was a value like a diamond as it's darn near impossible to search for anything online about wood floors without finding my website. I actually teach people how to get top placement on search engines. See http://woodfloorist.com/1/Searchengineoptimization.html
It's nice to come across another craftsman (I'm an electrician by trade) who lives by the same philosophy as I do.I've hear that electricians are "short" people. Is that true?
While I am an electrician by trade I have had previous experience with wood. In my early days I worked with an old timer who taught me the proper techniques of home framing and since then have gained some experience in finishing. Crown moulding remains my weak point, however I have had good experience as long as I take my time and being careful.Crown molding is an angle problem which is usually NOT a 45 degree angle and a good coping saw. I know enough to leave the crown molding to those who do it well.
I have never installed T&G flooring and am interested in placing it throughout my entire second floor of my home. 5 bedrooms and a 20'+ hallway. I will remove all of the "builder special" base trim and replace it with red oak baseboard, though we have not yet decided what baseboard design..I assume by "builder special" you have a house where door casing was used as both casing and baseboard. I see that a lot.
I have read up on some of the installation blogs floating around and have gained a bit of insight as to the direction to go but, I would feel better with the advice of a professional. So, having said that, here we go!!..You can ask 10 people and get 10 different answers.
1) I talked with a distributor who has a special on some #3 red oak for 99 cents a sq ft. I looked at a sample and it is rough and he also told me that there may be some pieces with the spline missing in parts of the board. He went on to say that the missing spline would not make any difference once it is nailed down.!!..Translation: Once you have nailed it down and your check has cleared it makes no difference because you can't return it anyway.
I didn't argue his point since i'm not an expert but that didn't sound right to me.It's right from his point of view. (see translation above) It's not right from your point of view.
While a 4' piece with 3-4" of spline missing probably wouldn't be a problem I would think any more than that is definitely a BIG problem.With #3 you are actually using firewood for flooring. If that's the look you want then that's OK as long as you know what it is you're using. Some people LOVE the rustic look. I fill a lot of the voids with Latex wood filler and the knot holes with clear epoxy. Makes a dinamite looking floor but it requires a little more work.
The #2 is $2.10 which makes the 99 cent sound good on the surface, but not if I have to throw half of it away. Your thoughts ?The cost is one issue. You're basically getting the flooring which didn't make the standards for #2. They sort it all out after they make it. You might have a lot of waste but usually you can find ways to use a lot of it by cutting the waste out and using the piece as a starter or ender board up against the wall. Every mill differs what is #3 so that is hard to say. What you can personally live with is another factor. What one person thinks is a crap piece of flooring is the beautiful piece of flooring to someone else. I've actually had customers who see me racking the floor so not so nice pieces end up under the cabinets and move that piece to the center of the floor.
2)Nailers. I see staplers and nailers. I'm inclined to go the nailer route which drives the 2" barbed cleat as opposed to the staple (Hey! I thought staplers were for paper!). The old timer trainer training tells me to go with the nailer. Again, your thoughts.I have both and use both. I have been in the business over 30 years. I have installed gyms with a manual Powernailer. I usually use the Powernailer for jobs that are too small to bother hauling a compressor in, jobs where the customer is using the Bostich Stapler so we have two nailers going, jobs where I am going to leave the customer with the nailer, jobs where I am teaching as going from a manual nailer to a air driven stapler is easier than going from air to manual or jobs where I just feel like wailing on a nailer. The Bostich stapler is definitely easier to use. I can actually drive a staple in with my fist.
3) Field cut joints. All of the factory joints are T&G, and on a normal square room with nothing fancy I would not need to make any cuts except for endwall cuts. But what about those situations where there may be a miter or where my floor design calls for a 45 or 90 change of direction? Should I not rig my router with a tongue(or groove) bit so that ALL joints are locked?As a craftsman I have one router which is a dedicated slotting router. That's all I use it for. The old one I had I wore out. It's pictured on the bottom of the page at http://www.woodfloorist.com/contact.html
Mom is calling me to dinner, I'll let you peruse these and ask more later.At least you have your priorities right. I mean who can think about floors when the food is on. Oh and by the way this is my Newest Webpage
Thanks, Chris, Columbus,OH |
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