Tongue and groove flooring without glueing and nailing?

pieroabcd

Hi,
I'm looking at flooring boards to replace the most dreaded carpets (incredible how much stuff the vacuum collects!!). 
I've more or less chosen the flooring that I like, but since it's solid wood it ships with a tongue and groove installation system.
Glueing and nailing are absolutely no no no no no not an option for me, so I'm wondering if someone has installed tongue and groove boards  without glueing and nailing, in a floating manner like with laminate boards that use the click system. Does it work and remain stable without the boards disconnecting and/or expanding/shrinking?

grumbler

Don't do this, especially with solid (not engineered) wood that can change shape gradually.

However, any sort of T&G floating floor will develop gaps sooner or later if not glued.

stuart45

Many years ago, I asked one of the chippies at work if it could be done with solid oak flooring, and he said that it wouldn't work. Engineered timber with the click system is needed for a floating floor.

plumb1_2

T&g flooring is a difficult animal than a click flooring system.
I have seen in the past when installing t&g flooring, you can use a secret metal clip into the grove part. Which is then fixed to the existing flooring.

Typhoon2000

Some real wood floors give a range of installation options. For example most Junkers flooring can be nailed, glued or clipped together with metal clips and floated like laminate.
https://www.junckers.co.uk/wood-flooring/guidance/installation-methods/clip-system

We used a combination of nailing and clipping where the floor extended without a break from the hallway which had floor boards to an extension with a concrete floor without having the change the height of the floor with plywood sheets.

pieroabcd

Engineering it is then.
Thanks 

bris

Not a chance of getting away with it, it will open like a Christmas cracker

mine is nailed using one of the nailers custom made for the job and I still have some openings in a couple of places, I made the mistake of not gluing as I thought the nails would be enough, so my advice is to do both

Gavin83

pieroabcd said:

Hi,
I'm looking at flooring boards to replace the most dreaded carpets (incredible how much stuff the vacuum collects!!). 
I've more or less chosen the flooring that I like, but since it's solid wood it ships with a tongue and groove installation system.
Glueing and nailing are absolutely no no no no no not an option for me, so I'm wondering if someone has installed tongue and groove boards  without glueing and nailing, in a floating manner like with laminate boards that use the click system. Does it work and remain stable without the boards disconnecting and/or expanding/shrinking?

Why are gluing and nailing not an option?

Regardless of whether it’s solid wood or engineered if it’s T&G you’ll need to nail/glue/clip it. You can get engineered flooring using the click system, although those that I’ve seen has been pretty difficult to clip together.

Don’t cut corners with this, you will regret it.

onomatopoeia99

I've done three rooms with tongue and groove engineered wood and glued the flooring using a line of PVA along the top of the tongue, dispensed from an old washing up liquid bottle so the floor is floating and only stuck to itself.  All holding up well so far after several years, no nails required.  

pieroabcd

When I talked to the installer, one thing that left me baffled is that he wanted to convince me to add a layer of plywood under the new flooring boards.


I imagine that they serve their purpose when solid wood is used (and even so
I'm not totally convinced) but not with engineered wood that is done mostly with plywood.

benson1980

pieroabcd said:

When I talked to the installer, one thing that left me baffled is that he wanted to convince me to add a layer of plywood under the new flooring boards.


I imagine that they serve their purpose when solid wood is used (and even so
I'm not totally convinced) but not with engineered wood that is done mostly with plywood.

What is your subfloor? You mean they wanted to overboard with ply before laying the final flooring surface?

I overboarded with 6mm ply, onto floorboards before laying tongue and groove engineered parquet flooring. This is what the supplier recommended and it helps to even out the slight variance in the boards underneath as well as providing a nice solid real wood surface to apply the adhesive. Maybe the installer is recommending this because it's the way to go.