Hardwood Flooring - Clic style or not?

shaley · Dec 15, 2007

Started this 3 days ago. 3/4 T&G White Oak prefinished at Lowes $2.99 SqFt.
Not bad quality but I've had to cut alot of the end joints square. My hands are too sore to work on it today. I guess the investment in tools may be a factor in which way you go. Get a good flooring air nailer if you go the solid wood route

Wayne County Hose · Dec 15, 2007

Vernonator said:
One recommendation i would make is that if you go with pre-finished do NOT get a brand with the "micro groove" on the edges. I believe they do this so the edges do not have to be perfect (since with pre-finished you are obviously not going to sand it down). We have this in our 2.5yr old house and it is the WORST - the grooves fill up with dirt and are impossible to get clean. It will not be too many years and I will pull it all up and do it the old fashioned way - solid wood.

I put this floor down almost 5 years ago and am very happy with it. Well, the house burned but that's a different story. We always took our shoes off at the door, as you should with any decent floor. If installed properly, there shouldn't be any space for the dirt to get in. I know that quite a few boards I wouldn't put down because there wasn't a perfect edge. I saved these boards for ends and closets.

GarthH · Dec 15, 2007

Thanks for all of the postings.

It is a DIYer project. The reason for the engineered flooring is the radiant heat. 100% Wood will expand and contract too much with the heating - I'm told

Our last flooring project was done by a pro with a nailer but we had large gaps between the boards in the winter, so I was hoping the click style would move less.

I did a basement a few years ago with laminate - I felt the final product was better than the hardwood. I didn't like the laminate appearance; the hardwood seem to just look better.

Unfortunately we do not have the wood liquidators or Lowes in the area and freight is a killer. My choices are Home depot or the flooring stores. I'm OK with HD but it seems like they do not handle special orders well and the shelf stock is not quite the right color.

The product we are looking at does have cork on the bottom surface. The mfg guarantees that it the click fastening process will hold for at least 25 years and is able to take it apart up to 3 times.

I don't think the nailing is a problem with the radiant heat. One mfg showed glueing, nailing or glueing the boards together on engineered wood. The laminate floor we did seem to be better for gapping than the T&G nailed. It takes a little wiggling with the clic to get it tight but it seemed to stay much better. The wiggling is likely harder on a body than nailing.

Maybe it was the hardwood that we used last time that was the problem. It was prefinished and maybe the T&G was not tight enough?

Garth

AlanB · Dec 17, 2007

I would not throw lumber liquidators out of the equation for shipping. Every time we have used them, they have been the better deal, shipping included.

Our Bamboo came out of Sams Club, not sure how temp would effect it, as it is kind of like plywood, except horizontal.

I was thinking the expansion and contraction would occur due to changes in temp and humidity, which I try my best to keep consistent in the house.

Wayne County Hose · Dec 17, 2007

I had a wood furnace and had an awful time with the gaps in my wood floor the first winter. I got a humidity meter and found the humidity at 15%! I immediately installed a whole house humidifier in the air duct and within 2 weeks, all was good again. I spoke to a real knowledgable wood floor installer that was willing to give advice before I started. He told me that like anything, preparation is key. Flat floor, having the product in the house for at least 2 weeks prior to install, etc. I had a hand nailer for wood flooring. He told me every nail is 2 hits, the first hit sets the board, the 2nd hit drives the nail. I also found that for squeaks, sprinkle some baby powder on the floor and sweep it around into the cracks.

Lots of little tricks with a wood floor, but I wouldn't have any imitations.

In my house fire, the wood floor actually helped. The fire couldn't burn through the wood floor, so it went upward instead of over. If the fire went over, we would have lost absolutely everything. The wood floor did not burn even though the floor joists and subfloor burned completely. The wood floor looked almost like it could be salvaged.