When
you’ve chosen your beautiful new oak floor, before it can be installed you need
to make sure that everything is ready and prepared correctly, so that your new flooring lasts and pe4forms as it should.
Most
satisfaction of installing your new oak flooring comes from actually laying it
but poor preparation will often result in that satisfaction being short lived.
Maybe
your old floor will need to be removed but the most likely required work is the
preparation of the subfloor for the new one. Whoever is doing the installation
work should be in charge of the preparation, thus being responsible for and
ensuring that all conditions are suitable for the flooring project to begin.
Whoever this is should always look for potential problems or challenges, many
of which will be water or moisture related.
Everything should be moisture checked for suitability (the oak flooring, the subfloor and the room) and the Relative Humidity should be measured and proven as acceptable between 35% and 60%.
Incorrect or insufficient acclimatisation of the new oak flooring is a major cause of floor failure, so don't be tempted to rush this process.
Project
preparation for a new oak floor, engineered oak or solid oak flooring, is as
important as the installation process because no matter how good a quality your
new oak floor is, it’s only ever going to be as good as the subfloor that it goes down
on top of.
Removing
old flooring, preparing subfloors, installing underlay, filling cracks and all
the other necessary work required certainly isn’t the most glamorous of jobs
but it’s vital for good floor performance after installation.
All
the preparation work for your new oak floor should be done before you take
delivery of it, to avoid the risk of damage.
Then
a decision needs to be made on the best installation method to use, and that
will usually depend on what kind of subfloor you have (concrete, plywood or
joists) and also what type of oak flooring you are installing (solid oak
flooring or engineered oak flooring).
Oak
Floors Online recommend that all solid oak flooring is fixed down to the
subfloor, either by using flexible adhesive or by secret nailing it down,
because of its tendency to move dimensionally and structurally during different
times of the year.
Engineered
oak flooring however, can be installed using all the available methods; the
most popular being the floating method over an underlay with integrated DPM for
moisture protection.
Oak
Floors Online supply one thickness solid oak flooring of 18mm and two
thicknesses of engineered oak flooring; 15mm and 21mm, the 21mm being
structural grade and so strong enough to be fixed directly to joists that are
fitted themselves at no more than 400mm centres.
Oak
Floors Online recommends that an industry trained floor installer is used but
in the real world it can sometimes become very expensive with the costs that
some charge, so some useful information on choosing a good installer is
available here; http://www.oakfloorsonline.co.uk/?template=choosingAFilter.html
There
is a great saying within the wood flooring industry that states; “we may use
wood with intelligence, only if we understand it”.
