Replacing carpet with wood flooring

squibs

When I moved into my pad, I put down cheap carpet (glued onto concrete floor) which is now fit for the tip. I really want to replace it with wood flooring, but am a bit clueless.

Will I need to take all my skirting boards off, plane the bottom of the doors, etc. to accomodate the extra height of the wood flooring?
Will the answer to this change depending on whether I use laminate or solid wood flooring?
Am I really likely to get only 8-10 years out of laminate flooring?
Who does this kind of work - handymen, carpenters, flooring contractors?
Will a professional come and measure up may rooms and source the required materials at a price that compares favourably to the cost in retail outlets?
Can I expect to gat an accurate quote in advance?

Sorry for all the questions. I've researched a bit but not found answers to these questions yet.

Branners

The skirting will defiantly have to come off, because the wood will expand after a given amount of time. So its always wise to leave a nice gap between the flooring and the skirting.

A carpenter is what your looking for id say, not sure if theres many floor specialists around?

Alternatively If you buy the floor packs you can fit them
yourself, its an easy job to do coz they just click to together with a T&G joint, even if you've know building knowledge, they really are handy, its like a jigsaw.

kadman

The skirting, may or may not have to be taken off.

Laminates could conceivably be covered by a slip at the skirting edge. This could also be done for solid and semi solid floors. This would then have to be repeated around the architraves to maintain the same detail all around the room. It would not be any more expensive, because its doubtful you could remove the skirting anyway, in one piece to be re-usable. So a plant on is an option. Its really your call, depending on the layout of the room as regards, nooks , rads ect.

Doors and saddles would probably have to be removed to allow for the thicknesses of the new floors .

You could remove the doors and skirtings yourself, to reduce fitting costs.
Fitting contractors would prefer to fit in a new build as opposed to a refurbishment of an old property, and the cost would reflect this, naturally enough.

Personally , I would remove the skirtings, saddles, and replace with new, to compliment the new floor.

kadman

squibs

Thanks for the answers lads, you just confirmed what I feared.

I'm trying to get an idea of costs now. In a 4yd * 4 yd room (16 square yards) I'm thinking solid wood flooring 35/sq yd + 15/sq yd fitting + 300 to plane doors, buy new paint, skirting board. This would be 1100 for the room. Is that about right?

Also - will I need a new saddles or can they be raised?

Cheers!

MorningStar

squibs wrote:

Am I really likely to get only 8-10 years out of laminate flooring?

You should be aware 8 years out of a lamenate sounds pretty high to me unless you are taking really good care of it. The costs you have quoted could be good or bad it depends on the quality of the laminate. It's just the same as cheap or expensive carpet.
Laminate foors can be destroyed by water so a round a front door they can fail. Scratches are easy to get and they are really obvious on many lamenate floors. The only way to get it to last 8 years or more would involve making people take off there shoes when entering your house.
I don't like laminate now as I have seen what they end up like. It looks a bit dated now so in 8 years it really will IMO.

squibs

At 35/sq yd I was expecting to get solid wood flooring. Am I deluding myself?

MorningStar

squibs wrote:

At 35/sq yd I was expecting to get solid wood flooring. Am I deluding myself?

No not if you look around but you can easily buy bad stuff for that price. Decide what you want first and then figure out what prices you can get it for. It is cheaper to buy the stuff outside Dublin sometimes but can also be cheaper to buy in as the good come through the port. Building supplies can vary greatly and for the size you could get a good deal.

patrido

squibs wrote:

At 35/sq yd I was expecting to get solid wood flooring. Am I deluding myself?

you certainly can, if you pick the right time. brooks thomas and noyeks (and others i'm sure) both have half price sales from time to time, where u can pick up some nice bargains.

you can also get semi solids, which have a layer (maybe 5 or 6mm) of solid wood on top of a layer or two of cheap stuff. they have the advantage that you can sand them and varnish them to make them look nice again, but as you'll remove 1 or 2 mm each time you do that, they obviously have a limited life too, before the solid wood is worn away

db

Did this recently in the hall. You should be able to get a good solid for the price you mention. The shop I bought from recommended a fitter who came in and removed the existing saddles and cut back the architraves / doors before he started laying the floor. He fitted new saddles with a rebate to make up the height difference between the floors. Be careful laying solid timber on new concrete floors - as the floor dries (up to 6 months) the timber will soak the moisture and expand more than normal.

I had unscrewed the skirting myself and replaced it after he was finished. It's well worth getting new skirting fitted as you can stain it to match the new floor and it's not too expensive. If the guy fitting it will screw it on for you so much the better - you can screw it off if you want to paint the room etc.

Click fit laminate is very cheap - approx €8/sq m and you can fit it yourself. I've had some down for the last 3 years in the playroom and despite the rough treatment it gets it still looks perfect.

Try to get the best underlay you can - even though it's not seen it has a huge effect on the finished floor.

(I have found specialist flooring shops better than the larger outlets in the past. If you are in Dublin there is an excellent timber flooring place in Celbridge or if you are around Limerick I can recommend a good shop in this area)

squibs

Cheers lads - some food for thought there!

Lex Luthor

squibs wrote:

At 35/sq yd I was expecting to get solid wood flooring. Am I deluding myself?

have a look in Heiton Buckleys off the Naas Rd.
I got 5" wide oak solid boards for about that price.

gregos

You can buy pre-finished solid maple t&g for about 30 euros per sq. yd in McMahons. You won't have to do any sanding or varnishing and the quality is good. I recently laid about 90 sq yds of it in my home and I'm happy with the result. However, you must include for extras like Porta-nails, jiffy foam and battens or similar. Personally, I don't bother with 2x1 battens any more: I just lay 8x4 mdf sheets everywhere, secured to the concrete with express nails, and fix directly to that. Why don't you have a go at doing this work yourself? You might be surprised how well it turns out.

Lex Luthor

gregos wrote:

Personally, I don't bother with 2x1 battens any more: I just lay 8x4 mdf sheets everywhere, secured to the concrete with express nails, and fix directly to that. Why don't you have a go at doing this work yourself? You might be surprised how well it turns out.

Gregos, I used 8x4 marine ply also, but I ripped the sheets into battens 1" wide and worked out really cheaper than buying battens. Then spaced them about 12" apart.
Glued the battens to the floor with Gun-o-prene panel adhesive so there was no risk of puncturing any sub floor piping.

gregos

Yeah, there's always a bit of Russian roulette involved unless you know exactly where the pipes are. In my case, I was refurbishing an older house, and replacing gun-barrel downstairs, so I had control over where the pipes went, but I guess everyone has had that "oh merde!" moment as scalding water sprays all over us. Happy days.

cltt97

Guys,

I'm thinking of putting down wooden floor.

I bought one of these old council houses (60y old) in drimnagh. I learnt there was no damp proofing available and done at that time of building.
I've got a concrete floor. timber straight on the concrete, no joists inbetweeen. There is also a strip of concrete in the middle of the room, where a former dividing wall was placed (about one inch higher than rest of floo and probably 50cm in width). The timber doesn't look too bad, although a bit weathered. I am now wondering though what to do with the bits of concrete in the middle. If I take the boards up and replace with plywood, I'll still have the concrete patches. Will it be sufficient to cover them with the plastic and lay the floor over them ? I then would obviously have to try to avoid nailing the boards down over that strip so not to nail through the moisture barrier?
Is that a bad idea or would I have to try and chip away the old concrete strips/wall foundations to make flush with the concrete creed?I'm not sure if/how moist the concrete is (how do I best determine that?) but either way I figured and from advice I got here, that the best way to go about this is to
-rip out old timer and joists
-put down heavy gauge PVC over concrete as moisture barrier
-put down some radon gas barrier (someone recommended that)
-put down some insulating/sound barrier material
-put down some plywood (would I just put that down or nail to floor?)
-store wood for a couple of days in house for acclimatisation
-put down floor (will probably have this done by professionals)

Does anyone have any views on this, is this the best way to go about it, or do we need to do something else/different?

Avns1s

cltt97 wrote:

Guys,

I'm thinking of putting down wooden floor.

I bought one of these old council houses (60y old) in drimnagh. I learnt there was no damp proofing available and done at that time of building.
I've got a concrete floor. timber straight on the concrete, no joists inbetweeen. There is also a strip of concrete in the middle of the room, where a former dividing wall was placed (about one inch higher than rest of floo and probably 50cm in width). The timber doesn't look too bad, although a bit weathered. I am now wondering though what to do with the bits of concrete in the middle. If I take the boards up and replace with plywood, I'll still have the concrete patches. Will it be sufficient to cover them with the plastic and lay the floor over them ? I then would obviously have to try to avoid nailing the boards down over that strip so not to nail through the moisture barrier?
Is that a bad idea or would I have to try and chip away the old concrete strips/wall foundations to make flush with the concrete creed?I'm not sure if/how moist the concrete is (how do I best determine that?) but either way I figured and from advice I got here, that the best way to go about this is to
-rip out old timer and joists
-put down heavy gauge PVC over concrete as moisture barrier
-put down some radon gas barrier (someone recommended that)
-put down some insulating/sound barrier material
-put down some plywood (would I just put that down or nail to floor?)
-store wood for a couple of days in house for acclimatisation
-put down floor (will probably have this done by professionals)

Does anyone have any views on this, is this the best way to go about it, or do we need to do something else/different?

You could either take up the concrete and the old wood or alternatively lay the new floor on top of it, taking into account the new height and its effect on doors, adjoining rooms etc. I would have thought that your best option was a floating floor, no nails, boards glued together and laid on top of underlay.

Someday

Cheapest around by Far and they look great

http://www.thehardwoodff.com/

cltt97

Avns1s, the problem I have Ithink might be moisture coming from the ground, not sure, but I know those old houses are not damp proofed.So I'm thinking if I put plastic over the existing floor then the old floorboards can happily rot away underneath, that's why I'm thinking of taking them up, put down plastic and put plywood over. will tran and get the plywood level with the old remaining concrete wall stub. I think that would be the easiest thing to do, but not an expert, so any advice welcome.

Avns1s

cltt97 wrote:

Avns1s, the problem I have Ithink might be moisture coming from the ground, not sure, but I know those old houses are not damp proofed.So I'm thinking if I put plastic over the existing floor then the old floorboards can happily rot away underneath, that's why I'm thinking of taking them up, put down plastic and put plywood over. will tran and get the plywood level with the old remaining concrete wall stub. I think that would be the easiest thing to do, but not an expert, so any advice welcome.

I see your point. The underlay should prevent any moisture coming up to your new wood floor from below and you could of course, put a layer of plastic underneath the underlay to be absolutely sure but you still, presumably, dont want the old timber rotting away underneath all of that, so maybe your best option is to remove down to the point that you can put a damp proof membrane of some description in place and either reduce the level of the concrete or as you have suggested yourself, bring up the level of the area currently under the wood with ply. Remember if you go with solid or semi solid wood, you could be looking at boards of up to 22mm thick. It might be as well to factor this into your calculations on levels.

Hope this is some use.

kadman

cltt97 wrote:

Avns1s, the problem I have Ithink might be moisture coming from the ground, not sure, but I know those old houses are not damp proofed.So I'm thinking if I put plastic over the existing floor then the old floorboards can happily rot away underneath, that's why I'm thinking of taking them up, put down plastic and put plywood over. will tran and get the plywood level with the old remaining concrete wall stub. I think that would be the easiest thing to do, but not an expert, so any advice welcome.

I think you have a two fold problem to deal with. And you need to sort out your damp problem correctly first. It would be extremely unwise to consider solid or semi solid flooring , unless you get your damp problem sorted 100% first.

kadman

cltt97

Thanks guys, the thing is, I don't actually know if I do have a damp problem. All I know is that these houses were built in the 40s at which time damp proofing was not done. There is no musty or damp smell as such and the old floorboards don't seem damp either, I just want to make tripple sure that whatever I put down is well protected. Ideally I'd like an expert to come down and have a look and do some moisture measurements - does anyone have any recommendations?