Any Wood Floor Experts out there?

DBUSHLB7

Team DMAX
Mar 9, 2012
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Albuquerque, NM
Do you adhere the wood directly to the slab once acclimated. Or do have to absolutely have to use a sub floor. I was quoted in the 7 dollar area for an engineered hard wood. Great info on that stuff by the way. But I may look into real wood it is absolutely gorgeous.

You can glue down solid 3/4" wood or anything else to concrete. A calcium chloride test or rapid RH test needs to be performed prior to installation to determine how much ground moisture your slab emits. If it emits too much, a moisture barrier must be applied on the concrete prior to glue down install. Those products are a whole other topic I won't bore you with. Some are epoxy primers some are troweled, self leveling membranes. Your adhesive FYI does block moisture up to a limited percentage. Remember, you cannot glue down solid wood below grade, only engineered.

Second thing to keep in mind about adhesives for wood floors is they need to be elastomeric. This adhesive "stretches" while maintaining its hold on the wood. It allows the wood to move (expand/contract) throughout the year. Mapei, Bostik, Sikka, Dri-Tac, Stauf, and Bona all make good adhesives that will work. They are not cheap though. Most of them will be urethane adhesives, the Bona R851 is a silane based product. The big advantage to glue downs is finished height. You can often flush where you hit tile or carpet while solid nail downs require a 3/4" minimum subfloor. By the time a solid is installed with subfloor you are sitting at 1 1/2" above the concrete and transitions are needed unless your builder recessed the slab in advance.

Here's something else to remember: when gluing down direct to the concrete, the slab must be pretty level. Most slabs in my experience need at least a bit of grinding, and or primer and leveling compound poured. These are costs that will make you wish you had just "floated" a subfloor over it and done the nail down. Glue down installs are also more tricky. Making sure the wood is strapped or taped together while glue sets up is your first challenge. Then you have to make sure the floor is weighted down to ensure good contact between concrete, adhesive, and wood.

7$ a foot installed doesn't sound bad. Just don't buy a product that can't be sanded/refinished down the road or is on closeout or being discontinued. Great price but if something happens to the floor you will not be able to repair it (unless you bought extra wood) and your house will be torn up all over again. Talk about dust..... Took a road construction type compressor an demo hammer to tear out the last glue down another company botched. What a mess.
 
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DBUSHLB7

Team DMAX
Mar 9, 2012
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5/8 Owens brand engineered with 3/16 solid oak wear layer. The rest is a birch engineered core. Best product BY FAR to glue down. All pieces out of the box are PERFECTLY straight. This pic shows the floor strapped, taped, and weighted. Lot of work to do it right.
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This was a brand new radiant heat slab and it still needed some grinding...
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.....and primer/leveling compound poured
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DBUSHLB7

Team DMAX
Mar 9, 2012
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Here's a 60 year old house I worked in a couple months ago. Built on a crawl space and had #1 11/2" red oak 3/4" T&G flooring all throughout. Old high school buddy and his wife bought the place and never knew it had hardwood underneath the carpet. Their realtor told them to remove the carpet and have the floors refinished to expedite the sale (they moved to Dallas). They tore out the carpet and BAM! Cat piss damage!
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No issues finding the wood to match! My distributor even still sells the wood from the same mill as the existing floor! 1 day repair and 600 bucks later...
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1200sq feet of sand/refinish and vuala... Good as new and still 7/8 of the wear layer still sand able when the time comes. Not many floor surfaces outlive a person. Hardwood can!
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TheBac

Why do I keep doing this?
Staff member
Apr 19, 2008
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Mid Michigan
Nice job fixing that floor, D. :thumb:


Tom do you live anywhere near Grand Rapids? One of our former employees (and a close friend) works for a hardwood floor company there that is great. My buddy Brandon also does sidework and is bad ace! He is fast and highly skilled. He works for River Shores I think it's called.

I'm in Lansing, about 60 miles or so from GR.
 

GRNASTY

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Feb 17, 2013
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Im actually subcontracting out my new shack ... I used the small oak boards with 2 sheets of Advantech sub flooring . i also used advantech for the siding and the advantech for roofs ... are you sure this isnt the sub floor in such an old home ? My brother used gym finish in his home.

And I will have no sheetrock in my celings except for the heated an cooled garage in my shack. I chose to use beaded board! talking about time consuming. thats my bonus room. its like putting hardwood in the celing

511d9e7a.jpg
 
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DBUSHLB7

Team DMAX
Mar 9, 2012
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It would have to be REALLY old for the T&G oak to be nailed directly over sleepers or joists W/O plywood. The smallest face width I've ever seen over joists directly is 2 1/4"

I've never heard of Advantech. What type of plywood? ACX, CDX, or OSB?
 

custom8726

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Feb 25, 2008
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Good info Here:thumb: 90% of my house upstairs & Down is Oak flooring. I had it all refinished 9 years ago when I bought the house but my 2 labs have destroyed the top layer (poly) on the bottom floor of the house :( I really need to get them re-done but either need something (Near) indestructable for a top coat or wait for the dogs to pass away...
 

GRNASTY

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Feb 17, 2013
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It would have to be REALLY old for the T&G oak to be nailed directly over sleepers or joists W/O plywood. The smallest face width I've ever seen over joists directly is 2 1/4"

I've never heard of Advantech. What type of plywood? ACX, CDX, or OSB?

http://www.advantechperforms.com/

the out side is pre finished with house wrap just needs the joints to be taped green. the roof has a red lining .. like roofing paper. but i still wraped the house an used tar paper on my GAF country mansion shingles

I got over 200lbs of screws in my sub floor
 
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DBUSHLB7

Team DMAX
Mar 9, 2012
2,789
0
0
Albuquerque, NM
Good info Here:thumb: 90% of my house upstairs & Down is Oak flooring. I had it all refinished 9 years ago when I bought the house but my 2 labs have destroyed the top layer (poly) on the bottom floor of the house :( I really need to get them re-done but either need something (Near) indestructable for a top coat or wait for the dogs to pass away...

Big inside dogs are really hard on wood floors with even the best of catylized urethanes. I wish I could tell you there was an indestructible coating. I've seen epoxy coatings on wood floors before but man o man. Ugly and VERY plastic looking. There are some acid cure finishes on the market but talk about toxic and running everyone out of the house for a while. Not a good option at all.

http://www.advantechperforms.com/

the out side is pre finished with house wrap just needs the joints to be taped green. the roof has a red lining .. like roofing paper. but i still wraped the house an used tar paper on my GAF country mansion shingles

I got over 200lbs of screws in my sub floor

Glad to see some people use screws lol. I shake my head sometimes at the crap people use to fasten important things.
 

GRNASTY

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Feb 17, 2013
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im not rich ! im building this house out of pocket an im young an plan to stay in it till i die. been bulding it for 3-4 yrs if u want to see a pic its only 3,800sqft