Elastolin Underlay

[WarnerConstCo.]

The scenario I described is typical for houses built in the near pre/post war era in this part of the world and the scenario is worse, say, in Houston or anywhere along the coast. Most of the houses I've lived in from that period have oak floors that are about 2" and if not water damaged, are still in good shape. Those houses lived for decades before conditioned air became common. Most would have just open flame gas heaters.

I have a friend that lives about a mile from here in a pier and beam from the '30's and all the floors are still in great shape, they just need refinishing. That flooring continued to be used through, maybe the '60's - well into the era of concrete slabs. I think on the slabs, it was common to use a subfloor on top of the concrete.

Maybe a floor expert from this part of the word can chime in...

Tom

1.  Those were old growth trees that went into making those floors Tom, so there is a huge advantage right there.

2.  All the major expansion will be with the grain, length wise of the flooring board.

3.  Any good installer will make sure he has expansion joints and he will also know what time of the year it is and how much room he will need to leave for movement.

 

[tbellemare]

Thanks, I knew there had to be a good explanation for how they made it work...

Even in current times, the temperature and humidity in my house varies similarly to what I described. We have the windows open for about 6 months of the year.

Tom

 

[jmbfestool]

Found this!  Reminded me of Woodguys comment about Gluing the Ends!  BUT this web site says glue face I think or all ends any way. Gotta do this flooring in a couple weeks they are having underfloor heating so I recommended Engineering flooring but also underlay as I find its more stable for underflooring heating.   After I got of the phone I thought I would just research this a bit just to make sure I am right in what I said! [unsure] I came across this site mentioning gluing! Woodguy came into my head lol!  The second Bold section below I think you just glue the ends as the underlay holds the floor together.

Engineered Wood Floors

The most common fitting method for engineered floors is the floating method – this is done using and underlay laid over the existing floor and then gluing the tongue and groove of the engineered floor together. This way the whole new floor is “floating” from the original floor. The underlay is used to cushion the floor and to stop any echo noise that occurs when there is a space between the two floors.

The adhesive used for floating the floor is a basic PVA wood adhesive.

The underlays available vary depending on the thickness and quality required.

The basic 3mm foam underlay is fine for general floors, as it absorbs the extra noise and cushions the new floor.

Fibre boards are not recommended for real wood floor as there is too much movement.

The sound insulation underlays such as the silent floor gold and the timbermate excel are very dense and act as sound insulation as well as a cushion for the floor. These are especially good for flats etc where minimal noise is essential.

The Envoy multi adhesive underlay has a sticky side which sticks the new floor together – you peel back the backing as you go and it instantly holds the floors in place. It is also recommended to glue the edges when using the adhesive underlay. This underlay is very popular with DIYers.

When floating floors you will notice a small amount of movement or “bounce” in the floor – this is normal for floating floors as they have not been stuck down to the sub floor.

Engineered boards can also be glued down directly to the sub floor or nailed over an existing timber floor. The thicker engineered boards (18 – 22mm thick) can be nailed down directly to joists as they are structural boards.

From this website!
http://www.realoakfloors.co.uk/guide_to_wood_flooring.php#subfloor