Can a solid wooden floor be floated

Carb

I know this point has been touched on a couple of times here, without it been fully discussed. I was in my loacal hardware providers last week and we were discussing the ridiculous price of adhesives. €110 for a bucket thats supposed to do 20 square yards:eek: and thats been optimistic. His opinion was that if the floor is T&G the whole way round and the joints are glued, he said he couldn't think how the floor would ever lift. TBH, I had the same oipinion myself.

I was wondering what other peoples thoughts are on this.

MR DAZ

Well just to give ya my two cents....I got a friend/carpenter in and he put down my floor in the sitting room which is solid oak and this was floated. Thats over two years ago and i have no issues with it at all.

I think as long as your concrete is dry enough and moisture levels are low...there is no reason why you cant...

In my case we had the wood in the house for nearly six months before it was laid, but that was due to finacial costs on our side

Daz

Lex Luthor

solid wood floors can be floated by glueing them but it takes a ridiculous amount of time to put them down.

Junckers do a floated floor, clip style.

Idleater

I have a floated solid floor (12 or 15cm wide boards, 18mm deep) and there is no problems with the wood. No nails and no glue at all. The room is 2m wide though so that helps to stabalise the boards width wise.

That is also floated above a very uneven original wooden floor too.

L.

dogg_r_69

You can do it alright Just make sure there's room all the way round for expansion Oaks swell quite alot so leave a good bit Once there's no moisture getting at it and enough expansion room under the skirting you should have to probs

Carb

Thanks for the replies folks. I was thinking it coud be done also, as even Coillte say their solid floors can be floated. Would I be correct in assuming that you glue the T&G, and if so, is there any particular glue that you would recommend.

The Hill Billy

Could I butt in here to ask if there is a maximum recommended width of room for floating a solid wood floor? E.g., Are you asking for trouble if you try this on a 5m x 5m room?

Manuel

I had a Coillte guy out who said their solid planks could be floated on a concrete floor in a room up to 14 ft wide. I eventually went with a pre-finished solid oak, Chinese (cheaper, from Homevalue Hardware). The guy in the shop said up to 90 mm they could be floated. I asked about the 110 mm and he said it depends on who your fitter is. My fitter was willing to float the 110 mm, but not the 135 mm. He glued the planks together, as Lex said a helluva job keeping them in place etc etc ...

Interestingly I understood he was going to float them on my plywood-over-joists floor upstairs too, but when push came to shove, he said he'd prefer to nail them to the ply.

By the way, with all this solid wood, and the effort it's taken me to decide on type, width, method of laying, underlay, fitter, etc etc, now once they're down, just how protective of them do I need to be? I'm talking about water here primarily. I have solid oak planks in the living part of kitchen/living, and the kids' bedrooms. Do I need to absolutely avoid spillages, or how quickly do spillages need to be mopped up before causing damage for example, or is it really only large scale flooding that will ruin them??

Thanks.

Viking House

We always glue and float them, we fill an old silicone tube with PVA glue and use a new nozzle with a small hole.
Using this system the T&G goes very quick.

aislingw

On this note has anyone any experience with "elastilon" - kind of an underlay - you stick your wooden floor to it, instead of glueing?

the chippie

i have used elastilon on a few floors when floating solids , mostly for floors done on ufh , i have done some were custormer did not wantto raise the floor too much (instead of plywood). you can glue the boards but this is not a great way to float your floor mainly because when movement is caused the boards will start to part in a few years , with glue the floor is only fixed together by the boards and their is no real fixing to concrete floor. with elastilon your floor fixed with adhesive layer that fixs boards to each orther and firmly to floor aswell , it also results in smoothly finished and strong floor that is both comfortable and silent plus virtually no gaps will develop. the only problem is the cost at about 10-12 euro a sqyd

Vertical

I floated an oak floor over light roll out insulation on an old and dry concrete slab a couple of years ago. Very happy with the result but it did take an awful long time (narrow boards) to glue.

Had a large spill at one end and was surprised how much it expanded the oak. Within a few weeks it was completely flat again but it goes to show a big gap is needed on the ends. Friends had a similar problem with a glued-down oak floor, same result.

I have to say I prefered the insulated floated floor as oak glued to concrete feels quite hard.