Fitting real wooden floor

Tucker

I can't make up my mind over my flooring on my recently extended living space.

The original thought was carpet, but with two young kids and a jack russell, it won't look good for long.

So, I am leaning towards a real wood floor.

I can DIY, so would fit it myself. What's the general fitting process on a solid floor?

sloth

Tucker wrote: »

I can't make up my mind over my flooring on my recently extended living space.

The original thought was carpet, but with two young kids and a jack russell, it won't look good for long.

So, I am leaning towards a real wood floor.

I can DIY, so would fit it myself. What's the general fitting process on a solid floor?

i'm assuming it is a concrete sub floor as it is new build extension? if so i would go with engineered flooring (cross bound ply with real wood top layer) this is less inclined to warp and twist as real wood does esp on a concrete base. dont forget your vapour barrier under the flooring.

we went for berry engineered oak floor and very plsd with it and extremely easy to lay with a good finish

Tucker

Half the room is newly laid screed over a concrete base and the other half is bitumen asphalt type over concrete.

Why is the vapour barrier needed, given it has a DPM under the concrete base?

Does the floor just float on an underlay and nail together or are batons used and it's fixed over baton centres?

sloth

Tucker wrote: »

Half the room is newly laid screed over a concrete base and the other half is bitumen asphalt type over concrete.

Why is the vapour barrier needed, given it has a DPM under the concrete base?

Does the floor just float on an underlay and nail together or are batons used and it's fixed over baton centres?

you still need the vapour barrier because concrete is generally much colder and that temp diff doesnt do the flooring any good

i'm not sure about all engineered floors but yes our one is a floating floor that just click and locks together (really simple but effective). ours is actually upstairs in a loft conversion so is on a wooden subfloor and i would say a floating floor on the concrete is your best bet in my opinion

keystone

Tucker wrote: »

Half the room is newly laid screed over a concrete base and the other half is bitumen asphalt type over concrete.

Does the floor just float on an underlay and nail together or are batons used and it's fixed over baton centres?

Real wood floors are either glued down (as yours would have to be if you chose this material) or nailed down.

Engineered floors are laid floating.

Cheers

Tucker

Cheers. So the engineered ones appear very similar in fitting to laminate, from what I can work out, which looks the most sensible option for a solid floor like mine.

I am just wondering if it will then just look like laminate rather than a wooden floor?

I have some 1200 gauge visqueen left over from my extension. I guess I could put that to use as the vapour barrier.

Still can't decide between wood and carpet though....

roswell

real wood / engineered does not look like laminate but most importantly doesnt sound like laminate either, take your skirting board off, laying longest length across the shortest width of the room and the short edge tounge to your left you wont go wrong, your off cut from each line makes the start of your next line so thier should be very little / no waste till you do the final line.

System

i have bamboo flooring and i love it , but it can easily scratch so be prepared for the dogs nails to mark it, that said id NEVER EVER go back to carpets.

Doozergirl

We have oak in our dining room and it was fine for over a year even with the kids... until the dog arrived! I'm thinking of changing it - he has his nails clipped but there are so many tiny scratches all over it now! H doesn't mind, thinks that is was happens to wood - he's right of course but it doesn't fill me with glee when I'm eating my dinner and looking at the scratches on the floor!

It doesn't like friends who come with high heeled shoes either - they leave little circular dents but you can't really ask people to remove their shoes on wood - they'd get cold feet

suisidevw

Provide them with slippers

Scratches 'add charachter'

Wookey

Thats the one major problem with real wood, expect to get scratches, dents, dings and cuts in it.