Installing Your Own Hardwood Floors

These technological advances have made many types of hardwood floors easier to install.

Installing your own hardwood floors.

Using the pneumatic nail gun place the gun lip over the edge of the board and strike firmly with the mallet driving the staple into the tongue of the hardwood plank. If you re installing over concrete you ll need to drill pilot holes through the wood and into the concrete to set the nails. Nail down nails fasten the wood to the subfloor. In fact laminate flooring can be installed in almost every room in your home including kitchens since it doesn t have to be glued down and doesn t involve grout or mortar.

Installing your own hardwood flooring may sometimes seem like a formidable task to handle for the typical do it yourself project but arming yourself with the proper knowledge and a little research can help you obtain that beautiful hardwood floor you always wanted and help make the installation process go a lot smoother. Measure the amount of overlap between the boards excluding the tongue and use this number plus 1 4 inch for expansion to find your compass distance. Planks can be cut with a hand saw circular saw or flooring cutter and most laminate flooring comes in planks that simply snap together with a tongue. These may be additional items you need to purchase as part of your flooring order.

Buy your wood from a local lumber store. In fact most hardwood floor suppliers can work with customers to find out just how much work they really want to do on their own. For instance you can order wood floors that are pre finished so there is no need to finish or seal the floor before or. Any type of wood will work.

Most diyers can complete laminate floor installation in one day. Lastly install any transition or threshold pieces. When installing up to a threshold it is not critical to make cuts exact. The type of installation you choose will depend on your subfloor budget lifestyle and the type of wood flooring you select.

It is available prefinished and can be nailed or glued down. Methods of installing hardwood flooring. Talk to your hardwood flooring retailer and let them know what types of transitions you need. There are four ways to attach and install your hardwood floors.

Apply a vapor barrier down before installing the wood planks. Fir and pine are very soft wood so it ll get marks and dings easier than a hardwood such as oak. To set your compass place the laminate flooring piece against the wall parallel with your last joint. For instance solid hardwood flooring is typically nailed down during installation while tongue and groove engineered flooring is usually clicked together or completely glued down.

Solid hardwood flooring is the most difficult of all to install. It consists of a thin veneer of hardwood glued to a substrate made of wood plies much like plywood. Come back later after the floor has been installed and use a circular saw to cut across for a precise cut. Nailing works best with thin wood flooring.