Oak Floors Online highlight some potential flooring problems but also provide the solutions to those problems

Every oak flooring installation needs substantial investment in materials, time and effort but when done correctly, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t last for the full lifetime of that home.

Sadly, not everyone cares enough (or possibly knows enough), so this is not always the case.

Annual global losses that are associated with wood floor failures and problems has been estimated at over $1billion, which emphasises the fact that when an oak floor does have problems, it can cost a lot of money and effort to put right.

In fact, the overall costs of a single floor failure have the potential to bankrupt an installer or even a small supplier, so you would think that every installer would do everything possible to avoid potential issues after installation. The plain fact is that not all do.

If you’re experiencing problems yourself, your own personal experiences will depend on your own situation; maybe you’ve just bought a new home with flooring that’s in a bad condition or possibly you’re an installer yourself who is experiencing problems on site… or maybe you’re in the worst case scenario where you’ve cut some corners on your installation in an effort to save money and now that's back-fired on you (as it usually does).

Let's try to cover a few of the most common challenges that are experienced during or after a new floor installation, so here goes…

Changes in Moisture Content

As explained previously within this blog and all over our website, any natural wood product will shrink or swell when forced to lose or absorb moisture.

Even though this is probably the most common reason for floor failure that we know of, in most situations it could actually have been totally avoided if the owner/installer had correctly used a moisture meter to assess the product and the site, acclimatised the flooring sufficiently (or avoided installing at all in situations where moisture is an ongoing site issue), and then maintained those conditions thereafter.

Every single oak floor board in every single oak floor wants to constantly lose or take on moisture in an effort to reach equilibrium with its surrounding conditions and environment, if those conditions are not kept constant. As we should all know by now (we’ve gone on about it often enough) oak flooring shrinks or expands when subjected to varying levels of moisture.

If you install oak flooring in conditions that are drier than the boards themselves, you’ll soon have gaps between every plank when the flooring loses moisture to meet the level of its surroundings, and if you install it into areas that are more damp or moist than the flooring, your floor will expand and may buckle or even push concrete walls outwards, causing structural damage.

Using a Moisture Meter

No natural oak floor should be installed before the moisture levels of the flooring itself and the surrounding walls and subfloor are determined and proven as being at the correct and suitable levels.

Likewise, the Relative Humidity of the areas where installation will take place should also be measured and recorded to prove suitability.

By using a moisture meter you can assess the moisture content of everything that may have an effect on the installation, before during and after installation, and this is vital to avoid problems afterwards.

According to most experienced installers, the best moisture meter to use is a resistance meter, which measures how well a piece of timber conducts or resists electricity.

Wood is not a good conductor, whereas water within wood is, so by measuring the amount of conductivity within any piece of timber, it’s possible to accurately determine its moisture content.

When the space within the cells of the timber dry out completely to the stage where no moisture is present, this is called the Fibre Saturation Point (FSP) and that piece of timber will start to shrink.
The FSP of wood is usually between 25-30% moisture content, so allowing the humidity to drop too low within your home is a sure way of forcing your floor boards to reach their FSP and start to shrink, especially during cold winter periods when the air is very dry and we turn our heating up to compensate.

Imperfections within the finished floor surface

Some people’s expectations of an installed natural oak floor are unrealistic to say the least. They expect the finished floor to resemble that of a fine piece of furniture but in reality there will be some imperfections or ‘natural defects’ in any wood floor, no matter what the grade is.

To avoid any pieces of flooring that are considered as being unsuitable from being included within the finished floor, the home owner should be present during the installation process to self-grade as installation progresses.
Because personal preferences vary massively, it’s not fair for anyone to expect their floor installer to know precisely what natural variances they will and will not want within their finished floor but you would be amazed how many people complain about "just one board in the middle of the floor..." that "just isn't as I want my floor to look".

Most cases of dissatisfaction can be avoided if the installer explains everything he or she can about the site conditions and how the flooring will be affected by them, whilst also covering every possible scenario regarding potential floor appearance when finished.

If the home owner isn’t happy with what the installer is telling them, then that’s a case that needs to be sorted out and agreed upon before installation commences… otherwise there will no doubt be problems afterwards.

Something for everyone to remember regarding floor finish is that the National Wood Flooring Association standards state that imperfections that only show up in a certain light or direction do not count as a defect because they are being magnified. This means that there is a measure of 'reality' with what's allowed and what's not.

If everyone also remembered that we are dealing with a natural product here, then expectations of finished appearance would be much more realistic. As we’ve said many times before, it seems that some people love the 'idea' of owning a natural floor but they don’t want it to appear or behave as a natural floor will???

Having said all that, there obviously will be some cases where the end user or home owner will be completely justified when unhappy with the finished appearance but the reasons must be determined before any accusations are made with regards blame.

Buckling, Crowning, Cupping, or Delaminating of the floor boards
Yes, this can be down to the quality of the flooring that’s purchased but in 100% of the cases we’ve experienced the reason has been down to variances in moisture and humidity within the areas the flooring has been installed, or the failure to determine the site conditions as being suitable before installation begins.

Most situations that we have been involved with have been where the home owner is claiming that the engineered oak flooring they’ve bought is delaminating because of poor quality, but on inspection the reason has been down to very low humidity levels forcing the oak wear layer to lose moisture and curl upwards in an effort to find more. This is certainly not a product fault, and all down to the failure to maintain the surrounding conditions that the flooring is ‘living’ within.

We cannot speak for every supplier but we pride ourselves on the quality of our products and also emphasise these potential issues before purchase (just read through our website and you’ll see all the information available on how to avoid any such challenges).

It’s human nature to look for a ‘better deal’ when purchasing an expensive product like oak flooring but some forget that achieving a 'better deal' is certainly not all down to price, especially when you’re expecting your new oak floor to perform and last for many years to come.

Make sure you compare everything about the products and suppliers you’re considering, and always buy the product that you feel best fits with your situation and the one that meets the required demands of that situation.

Obviously budget is an important consideration but as with most purchases, just buying the ‘cheapest’ product doesn't necessarily mean that it’s the best deal available.

Our opinion is that if your budget doesn’t meet your requirements, it’s false economy and a total waste of what money you have to buy something that’s not going to do what you want it to, and will probably need replacing within a couple of years (if not less).

Solutions to ALL the potential problems mentioned above

The only sure way to avoid costly and time consuming challenges with your installed floor is to do everything as follows;

• Firstly the buyer should be fully aware of the natural qualities and features of the product they’re buying, along with what’s allowed within the grades included
• Make sure the property is sealed and dry before any flooring is even delivered
• Prove with moisture checks that the flooring and site are both suitable for installation to begin (the acclimatisation process
• Prove with humidity checks that the conditions are suitable (the acclimatisation process)
• Prove and determine that the subfloor is suitable to accept a wood floor, and the installation method being used
• Fitter and home owner to be in complete agreement on all potential issues before installation
• Fitter and home owner to be completely aware of what features are allowed and not within the finished floor
• Surrounding conditions must be maintained after installation and kept within the guidelines recommended by the supplier
• The finished floor should be maintained and re-finished as and when required to avoid any part of the floor becoming ‘bare’ wood

Hopefully, the information above will help you to avoid costly challenges with your floor.

 

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Oak Floors Online explain when new oak flooring should be delivered

We often get asked when delivery should be arranged for the new oak flooring to arrive at the site address to be stored and acclimatised, and to be quite honest… it’s not as simple as just saying “a couple of weeks before installation starts”.

Although it may seem the most important issue for your schedule, there are more important potential challenges to cover than just the preferred installation date.

The oak flooring that Oak Floors Online supply will arrive ‘on site’ with a moisture content of around 8-9%, so the time when it’s ready for installation completely depends on the site conditions that it’s to be installed within.

Scenario 1;
The flooring is installed immediately at 8% moisture content and the surrounding subfloor and walls are at 15% and still drying out and giving off moisture

This will force the oak flooring to soak that excess moisture up and expand. Within weeks or sometimes days (depending on site conditions again) the flooring planks will start to push too tightly against each other, simply because they’ve increased in size from absorbing more moisture. This will cause the floor to buckle and lift away from the subfloor, sometimes even expanding so much that it can push out the surrounding walls and cause structural damage.

Scenario 2;
The flooring is installed immediately at 9% moisture content and the surroundings are at 4% moisture content because of the heating system being used (or other possible reasons), so meaning that the new oak floor boards will be forced to lose moisture to reach equilibrium with their surrounding conditions. This situation will cause your individual floor boards to shrink over the coming days and weeks, thus creating gaps between them, which in some extreme cases can actually cause the T&G joints of the boards to shrink so much that they pull apart and become detached from each other.

Both situations above can be costly and very time consuming to put right, so the best way of avoiding such potential challenges is to correctly and sufficiently acclimatise the flooring before installation begins.

The whole reason for acclimatising your new flooring before installation is to allow it to ‘do its moving’ before installation and not afterwards. Lots of information on this available at this link; http://www.oakfloorsonline.co.uk/?template=acclimatisationInfo.html

There is no set time for this because most site conditions will be different in some way, whether that be moisture content, humidity or simply where the site is.

Yes there will be situations when the flooring arrives at exactly the right moisture content for the site conditions but it’s always best to make sure yes?

Something else to bear in mind that’s very relevant to acclimatisation and installation times/dates is that no matter how perfect the conditions and acclimatisation process is, if you allow or force the conditions to change after installation then this will have an effect on the flooring.
In other words, if you force your flooring to change its moisture content (increase or decrease) then each plank within will change dimensionally and cause your finished floor to change shape or structure.

So, to sum up when you should have your new flooring delivered; “arrange delivery for when the building that it’s to be installed within is at moisture and humidity levels that are the same as what they will be when occupied, remembering that those levels should be maintained thereafter to avoid forcing your floor to change dimensionally or structurally”.

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Oak Floors Online explain why correct subfloor preparation is so important when installing a new oak floor

I know we’ve talked about this before but due to a recent site inspection at a newly renovated property that resulted in everyone blaming the next man, we thought we should emphasise the point again…

No matter how good a quality your new floor covering is, it will only ever be as good as the subfloor it’s being installed upon, especially when being glued down.

The reason I mention the ‘being glued down’ bit is that the recent case that I mention had used this method of installation, but after a few months the bond between the new oak flooring and the ‘concrete’ subfloor was failing and the home owner complained of ‘hollow’ parts of his floor echoing and moving when he walked on it.

Let’s make this clear from the start, nobody was blaming the actual flooring itself, which was good for us, but blame was directed at the fitter, the adhesive used, and the builder who installed and finished the subfloor. Even though we were ‘in the clear’ so to speak, the whole situation and experience was doing the flooring industry no favours at all.

No one involved enjoyed the experience obviously, and the home owner’s opinion of using wood flooring for his project was negatively damaged, thus reducing the probability of his next project using wood, whilst also reducing his friends and family’s confidence in using wood flooring during the process.

Now as difficult as it may seem to arrange, some contact and discussion between the floor installer and the subfloor installer is vital for successful glue down installations because as we’ve already stated; ‘your new floor covering will only ever be as good as the subfloor it’s being installed upon’.

The reason for making this point is that if one person is finishing the subfloor and another actually confirming that it’s suitable for installing new oak flooring upon it, with no knowledge of what work has been done to it, something is seriously wrong and worst case scenario is that the finished floor will fail.

When it does, the subfloor installer will usually blame the floor installer and vice versa… sometimes with both ending up blaming the adhesive to ‘save face’ and make claims to their quality of workmanship, even though they both know that it has nothing to do with the adhesive.

The plain and basic fact is that most builders will simply finish the subfloor to what they believe to be a good and acceptable surface (you can't blame them for doing this), but that doesn’t always mean that the finished surface is strong and stable enough to adhere to flooring adhesive that is designed with some flexibility to move as the wood flooring above needs to do itself. They may not even know that there's a wood floor being installed upon 'their' subfloor? 

Some possible reasons for failure in this type of situation when using the glue down method…

• The subfloor has been ‘patched up’ by the builder with an inconsistent or insufficient screed over an uneven concrete subfloor.
• The original subfloor has been levelled perfectly with a screed but the screed hides the fact that there is a coat of bitumen or similar between the old subfloor and the new screed.
• The finished screed or subfloor mix is simply not strong enough due to the incorrect materials, or quantities of those materials, being used.

Let’s face facts here, all trades people want to get paid for the work they do, so all will carry out that work to a level of workmanship that meets their personal belief in what needs to be done. Some subfloor installers (usually builders) will not even ask what floor covering is being installed because as far as they see it, that’s not their problem, which is right ‘in a way’.

And some floor installers will not care about the subfloor because they see that as being the responsibility of the builder who installed it, which is not right at all.

But remember this, when this floor fails after installation, someone will have to pay for the remedial work required to put it right, or even replace the whole floor including labour costs, which can bankrupt some smaller companies or sole traders.

When problems arise in this type of situation, it’s NOT the home owner’s fault, nor the fault of the wood flooring supplier… the cause of the failure is purely down to the subfloor not being suitable to accept wood flooring being installed with the glue down method.

The only time this may be the fault of the home owner is when he or she has forced the floor installer to use this method of installation against their advice… but to be honest, no floor installer should ever be forced to do something that he or she does not completely believe as being the best thing to do, unless they explain the possible consequences and get a signed document to prove that they made the home owner aware of their opinion and belief before carrying out the work.

This scenario will usually only happen with renovation projects where an existing ‘old’ subfloor is being repaired but it can happen on ‘new builds’ too, so be aware.

Our advice is this;

Unless the home owner can verify and confirm that the methods used by the builder for repairing and levelling the subfloor are acceptable, or the floor installer has been involved and aware of those methods before floor installation begins, the best installation method to use is the floating floor one, where the new flooring is floated above a suitable underlay onto the subfloor.

Otherwise, everyone involved is risking floor failure, which will become costly and time-consuming for all involved, and may put someone out of business.

This may be a little blunt but we prefer to speak the truth, in an effort to educate our customers towards avoiding costly challenges, which can badly affect everyone involved as well as the industry itself.

 

Details of our recommended Fitting Guidelines are available here; http://www.oakfloorsonline.co.uk/?template=fittingGuidlines.html 

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Oak Flooring: Classic, flexible, and the flooring product of choice in the UK

When it comes to selecting your new flooring, there are not many materials (especially natural materials) that withstand the test of time as well as oak.

Natural oak provides warmth and character, whilst being able to ‘fit in’ with just about any surrounding décor.

Not just that but it can last for many, many years… even decades, and in some situations a century or more. For proof of this, simply visit some of the stately homes in the UK that date back hundreds of years, and have a look at the oak floors within them… still hardwearing and looking beautiful.

But at Oak Floors Online we understand that choosing a new oak floor is not as simple as just ordering one from a supplier. You need to consider the colour, the construction, the site conditions, its future use and surroundings, the best installation method, and also your budget.

All these important questions and resulting decisions will ultimately determine the overall appearance of your rooms after installation. 

You can’t simply choose your oak flooring without many other considerations because if you don’t like the end result after installation, it will cost you as much again and more to replace it for something you do like.

There are so many different finishes available these days that it can be very difficult to choose between them, all being suitable to use and walk on virtually immediately after installation has been completed.

On the other hand there’s also unfinished oak available, which allows you to match up the floor finish with other things in the room like staircases or furniture, or even create something completely unique just to be different.

It’s not just the finished appearance of your oak flooring that’s important either… you need to consider whether solid or engineered oak is better for your personal situation.

As a general guide, engineered oak provides much more flexibility than solid oak in most situations, being constructed in a way that provides better stability and yet appearing as solid oak when installed. You can read more information on this by clicking on this link: Solid v Engineered

Other considerations include the length and width of the actual boards themselves, most solid oak being made up of shorter random lengths and engineered being mostly longer, around 1800mm usually with some shorter lengths to enable easy staggering of joints within the floor.

Oak flooring also allows you to change the appearance of your rooms quite easily during the different seasons of the year… warm rugs and mats can be easily positioned during the cold winter months to give a nice warm feel and then stored away during spring and summer to provide a clean, fresh look.

So to sum up what oak flooring can provide you as your choice of flooring cover;

• It’s durable and long lasting
• It’s warm and inviting
• It’s unique and personal to you
• It can suit any décor
• It can save you money
• It can reduce the effects of dust-related allergies

All in all… it’s quite obvious why natural oak is the product of choice for most flooring applications here in the UK.

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Oak Floors Online: Oak - the tree that built Britain

A British Institution

We are still riding the crest of British pride and celebration from the summer of 2012. From the London Olympics to the Queens Jubilee the country has been able to reflect on what makes Britain truly great. Danny Boyle’s impressive opening ceremony showcased Britain as a lush ‘green and pleasant land’  with a striking 40ft, 3 Tonne Oak tree  standing proudly on a grassy mound in the opening sequence of the ceremony. The BBC also labelled the ancient species as ‘the tree that shaped Britain’   when the paneling in the House of Commons was replaced with solid oak. The iconic foliage was embossed on the 2012 £5 Olympic coin.

Oak Tree at London 2012 Olympics

Oak trees have been a permanent fixture in the landscape of the British landscape since pre-historic times when it was a part of the extensive wild wood that stretched across Europe . England had been a ‘paradise’ for trees as the country was covered with dense forests of Oak, Birch, Pine and Hazel since the end of the last ice-age. The majority of deciduous Oak woodlands occur in the temperate climates of the Northern Hemisphere as Oak trees are able to tolerate a high variation in weather types and temperatures. Interestingly, there are over 600 species of Oak all originating from the
Beech family ‘Fagaceae’. Some species including the native Sessil and English Oak are able to grow to 40m in height and can reach a circumference of 12m! With very distinctive foliage the tree can produce up to 50,000 acorns intermittently in ‘mast years’ . Only a small proportion of these woodlands are now present across Britain as much of the land has been converted to agriculture.

William the Conqueror famously claimed the Oak woodlands as the hunting grounds of Kings in his ‘Forest Law’. Landowners were no longer able to hunt freely on their own land as William preserved his ‘New Forest’ game for his favourite past time as he had done in Normandy!  Anyone caught stealing any deer or boar would be sentenced to mutilation! Later, in the 17th century, the Forest Law was amended in the Magna Carta giving land-owners more rights before, finally, the law was abolished towards the end of the century.
 
By the time the Forest Law was abolished, a large proportion of the British forests had been uprooted; the monetisation of the forest had truly started to take place. Oak wood is perfect for construction with a density of around 0.75 g/cm3, great strength, hardness, insect and fungal resistant (due to its high Tannin Content  and appealing grain markings . For years Oak trees supplied Britain with timber for a variety of different trades and crafts. Famously the fleets that included Sir Francis Drake’s Golden Hind and Nelson’s Victory used the wood of up to 2,500 oak trees to set sail on their adventurous missions to open new trade links with new nations . Therefore the British Oak not only provided fuel for people across that land it also helped us forge trade links which we are still utilising today! As Nelson’s sailors sang, ‘Hearts of oak are our ships; jolly tar’s are our men!’

Golden Hind in Dry Dock

Oak was not only used in the construction of War Ships, it has had a long relationship with food and drink. Oak is used to construct barrels to age and mature a plethora of spirits including Brandy, Scotch whisky and Sherry. Some of these barrels are charred before being filled as to enhance the flavour, colour and aroma of the liquids they were holding . The smoke from Oak wood chips has also been widely used to smoke fish, meat and cheese amongst other foods and is increasingly popular today in restaurants. Not only does smoking food with oak boost the flavour, it also tenderises and preserves it  - this was a key way of maintaining food reserves in times gone by.

Whilst the tree had been heralded as a native and national treasure it didn’t stop resources falling to the floor in the early winter of 1703. Britain was hit by a hurricane force storm which resulted in 4000 Oak’s falling in the New Forest alone. The Oak had been seen as a key driver of Britain’s fortunes and this was a real blow for the country who admired the material to excess. During the 18th century the replanting efforts were in full swing driven by the need for naval timber  as landowners were encouraged to do the patriotic (and profitable!) thing and replant oak on their holdings -  ‘The very idea of Britain - a new idea - was planted with the acorns’. The BBC explains that at the height of Oak Mania the tree became emblematic of liberty and freedom as it fuelled various war efforts.

Today many of the Oak trees left in the UK are classified as either veteran or ancient trees including the Major Oak in the world-famous, Robin Hood-territory, Sherwood Forest . The Major Oak is estimated to weigh approximately 23 tons and has a girth of approximately 33’’ . Whilst we may not rely on Oak for ship building today, it is widely used in home improvements and, as we can attest, it can be used to create stunning wood floors. The Oak Tree is a national treasure standing for unity, strength and Great Britain.

Images
http://www.indrakeswake.co.uk/Artefacts/goldenhind.htm

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Oak Floors Online provide information on gluing down an oak floor

Gluing down an oak floor is one of the most popular methods of installation because it provides a very strong bond between flooring and subfloor… that’s as long as the subfloor is strong enough in the first place.

So many floor failures that have used the glue down method are blamed on poor adhesive or poor installation practice, whereas the actual reason for failure is a poor quality subfloor that isn’t strong enough or the surface isn’t finished well enough for the adhesive to bond to.

In reality, this does actually have something to do with poor installation procedures because the installer should prove the subfloor as being suitable before any installation begins.

One of the advantages of gluing a wood floor to the subfloor is that the flooring will ‘take on’ the strength of the subfloor, so always feel like an oak floor should feel when walked upon. This allows thinner engineered boards to be used for this type of installation whilst creating a similar ‘feel’ as much thicker ones.

There are mainly two different types of adhesive available for gluing down oak flooring;

• Flexible adhesive
• Rigid adhesive.

We always recommend using flexible adhesive, even when installing engineered flooring because not only does it provide some flexibility should the floor want to more but it usually provides a better coverage rate too. Rigid adhesive may seem much cheaper at first glance but when coverage rates are considered, there’s not much difference.

The flexible adhesive we recommend is Sika T54 flexible adhesive; agreed it’s not the cheapest available on the market but we feel it’s the best quality.

The Sika T54 adhesive is simply poured onto the subfloor in manageable areas and spread using a Sika Notched Spreader Trowel and although the trowel detail may seem an insignificant subject to focus on, many floor failures have been contributed as being down to using the wrong size, some applying too much adhesive and some too little.

All reputable adhesive suppliers perform tests to determine what size notched trowel is best for their own adhesives, so please don’t think that ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to trowels. The size and profile of the notches control how much adhesive is applied, thus creating a ‘spread rate’ for the adhesive. Obviously if a different trowel size is used, the overall spread rate will be different too, which can affect adhesion between flooring and subfloor.

So much detail becomes important with this trowel detail; the width of each notch, the depth, the shape and the spacing between them, all contribute towards how the adhesive is applied and so ultimately towards the success of the installation.

Although gluing down oak flooring is very popular and can work very well in most situations where the subfloor is suitable, it’s not always the best method to use because you have no way of creating an immediate ‘fix’ for the flooring planks, so oak flooring that is not true and straight can be virtually impossible to install using this method.

Another very important aspect of gluing down an oak floor is to prevent any of the adhesive from reaching the face of the board, especially on prefinished products. If this does happen, it’s vital that it gets cleaned off before it starts to set because it can create a stain on the finished board.

At Oak Floors Online we also recommend that when the glue down method is used, every board is glued together using a good quality Joint Adhesive. This will prevent annoying creaks and squeaks from developing over time as the floor gets used, by preventing the joints between the boards from ‘rubbing’ against each other during varying seasons of the year.

 

More information on the different installation methods is available by clicking on these links;

Fitting Methods and Fitting Guidelines

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Oak Floors Online emphasise the importance of an expansion gap and what it can do...

As emphasised many times before within this blog and on our website, oak flooring will expand and contract as its moisture content changes, so an allowance for this must be considered before installation begins.

Firstly solid oak will move dimensionally more than engineered because of the difference in construction; as explained previously, more info here; Solid v Engineered

This means that the allowance for expansion for engineered oak doesn’t need to be as much as for solid; 1mm per linear metre for engineered and 2mm for solid should be enough).

But let’s be really clear about expansion gaps, what they’re intended for and what can happen…

The main challenge when a floor expands isn’t the flooring buckling up at the centre of the room because although this may seem terrible at first, this is simply a ‘relief’ mechanism for the finished floor that actually prevents more damage being caused.

The very worst thing that can happen when a floor expands is that it increases in size so much that it actually pushes walls outwards and causes a structural problem but this is very rare if sufficient expansion allowance is left around the floor.

Leaving sufficient expansion gap around the perimeter of the room and around any vertical obstructions actually prevents this horrible and costly situation from happening because when the outside planks of the floor move too much they actually become loose and pull away, so being allowed to buckle upwards.

The clearance around the perimeter of the room actually has no effect on the planks at the centre of the floor and if the centre of the room becomes too ‘wet’ it will expand and buckle there.

The expansion gap around the perimeter is there to allow the last few rows of flooring to become loose and pull away from their fixing, so allowing the boards to buckle upwards rather than stay in place and exert pressure against the walls.

If an oak floor is nailed down by secret nail method, because each nail is at a 45 degree angle through the tongue of each board, the greatest movement will be towards the tongue because each plank will find it easier to pull the nail outwards in that direction. See the image under ‘Secret Nailing Method Explained’ in our Free Info Pack

In large room areas of flooring, starting the installation at the centre of the room and installing the two halves of the room’s flooring ‘opposite’ to each other can reduce such problems from occurring.

When an oak floor is installed using the floating method, even though we recommend only using engineered flooring, this means that the finished floor behaves like one huge board, so expansion gaps surrounding the floor are vital and should be carefully calculated.

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