Festool Flooring, installed w/ pics!

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denovich

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Nov 22, 2011
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Before you get too excited about a new Festool product you never heard of, but now realize your life is incomplete without... It's not actually from Festool.  But when you look at the pictures it's obviously the perfect match. 

It's 3/8" thick, 4'x4' interlocking rubber tile, obtained for $.20 a sqft via Craigslist (a very unFestool price... retail is $3.50sqft + shipping.)  I love it.  The shop is quieter, easier to clean and looks better too (ok, that's more like Festool.)  I'm completely worn out after installing it though...  at 40lbs per tile, handing each piece probably a dozen times added up to quite the workout. 

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Very nice looking floor, but it's hardly the Festool green.  It's a nice contrast to it though.  Congrats on the new floor.  How is that rubber for sweeping sawdust?
 
Kevin D. said:
Very nice looking floor, but it's hardly the Festool green.  It's a nice contrast to it though.  Congrats on the new floor.  How is that rubber for sweeping sawdust?
Click to expand...

The tiles are black rubber with green flecks embedded... Viewed up close, the green of the flecks is a very close match to Festool green.   

Sweeping is very easy.  I built a large floor sweep along the left hand (plywood) wall.  With the DC on, it's easy to herd all the dust into the sweep using compressed air.  And because I was able to run the edge of the flooring right up against the walls, there are fewer places for dust to hide.  The one drawback of the dark floor though is that saw dust really stands out in stark contrast... little black screws do not. 

 
Scott in San Diego said:
The floor looks comfy...but other than the MFT, where's the Festool stuff?   ;D
Click to expand...

I'm a bit light on Festool gear... but that may change in a VERY big way this week.  Gloat to follow if the deal goes through.
 
Very nice.
Just curious - how does it inter-lock?
Also, what was it laid on?  Wondering, if laid on concrete for example, whether shop is warmer now?
 
Hi denovich,

Welcome to the FOG!  [smile]

Nice looking shop.  Can't wait to see where the new Festool fits in. !

You really need to hide that Makita Systainer though......... OK, I have a Makita Systainer too,.......  but only because I am a Systainer freak.  [big grin]

Seth
 
rustystoes said:
Your shop is immaculate, btw. Im super jealous.
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I'd need to do a lot of work in my garage in order to upgrade it to "disaster area."  With a small shop and too much stuff temp/overflow space gets out of hand in a hurry.  I tend to fall into a lot of interesting deals on Craigslist, leading to unexpected upgrades and more material than I know what to do with which poses all sorts of organizational problems.  Like the 20 sheets of makore veneered MDF, the 30 sheets of 1/2 apple ply, a few hundred bf of lumber, a surplus jointer and a contractor saw, a Miller Dialarc TIG and a Miller 75S MIG welder (about 400lbs each) a small metal lathe and a kegerator.  

The shop as it stands is also the result of about two years of labor.  I started out with a typical Eastern US, circa 1940s basement.  I started with a heavily sloped floor (about 6" down at the center floor drain) a few incandescent fixtures and shared the space with the laundry, water heater, furnace.  Piece by piece I slowly reworked everything (sometimes more than once) the biggest effort being the relocation of the furnace and redoing all the ductwork from scratch.  Up until now I've been able to get work done in my shop, but it always felt like a struggle... like running in soft sand.  Now that it's clean, bright, and relatively organized, it's simply easier to work in.
 
oldie said:
Very nice.
Just curious - how does it inter-lock?
Also, what was it laid on?  Wondering, if laid on concrete for example, whether shop is warmer now?
Click to expand...

Yes, the tiles have jigsaw-puzzle style interlocking tabs.  The flooring is laid on top of a plywood subfloor, which is on a pressure treated 2x4 substructure (cut to match the contours of the floor with minimum standing height loss.), to compensate for the extreme dish of the floor towards the floor drain.  A nice feature of the interlocking flooring which is dry laid, is that I can pull up a tile easily to gain access to the access panels I built into the plywood floor beneath.

I read that the rubber flooring has an insulating value of R-1, so it probably isn't going to make a big difference.  At least not as much as moving the furnace, R-30 in the ceiling, and the plywood subfloor did.  It seems to be in the low to mid 60s pretty much year round.  My attached garage, with concrete floor, drops into the mid 50s (and that's after insulating the garage door.)  I am noticing that my Minimax combo transmits a lot less vibration/noise through the floor.  And when I spilled a huge assortment of screws all over the floor it was remarkably quiet and my drinking glass merely bounced.  [embarassed]  Also, it is a much grippier surface, which is nice when I'm using a hand plane, or shoving big stuff over the jointer.
 
Thanks for response denovich.  Hadn't thought about vibration, sound, etc.
Certainly given me food for thought.
 
oldie said:
Thanks for response denovich.  Hadn't thought about vibration, sound, etc.
Certainly given me food for thought.
Click to expand...

The vibration dampening is pretty dramatic.  Before I had the rubber floor, I tried some surplus cork floor tiles under my Minimax helped a bit.  But rubber is obviously better suited to the task... and since the whole floor is covered, it stops the floor from acting like a drum.

One other little plus of the rubber floor:  I'm finding that little screws and things that I drop, don't seem to go as far.  They don't seem to hit and ricochet unpredictably into some secluded corner of the shop.  They just take a bit of a bounce, then stop dead.
 
So, the deal worked out... I'll be taking care of the woefully small number of Festool goodies in my shop in a big way.  Here's list of what I'm picking up this weekend.

Domino DF 500 Qplus - Model DS5/6/8/10 110sx
Dust Extractor Hepa--  Model CT 26 E
Saw Sliding Compound Miter Model KS 120
Workbench Model MFT/3
Sander Duplex in-line  Model LS 130 EQ plus
Sander Rotex 6  Model RO 150 E plus
Router  Model Ls1400 EQ plus
Drill  cordless  Model  C12 CE-MH45 Plus
Template Multi-Routing      MFS 4000
Template Multi-Routing MFS700
Clamp Quick
Guide Rail Accessory kit
Parallel Guide Extensions
Sander compact finish  Model ETS 125 EQ plus
Saw Jig  Model PS 300 EQ plus
Saw Plunge cut circular TS 55 EQ

Plus whatever other accessories go with all that.

Christmas is coming early...
 
denovich said:
So, the deal worked out... I'll be taking care of the woefully small number of Festool goodies in my shop in a big way.  Here's list of what I'm picking up this weekend.

......
Sander Rotex 6  Model RO 150 E plus
......
Drill  cordless  Model  C12 CE-MH45 Plus
......
Click to expand...

Just noticed you mentioned 2 older models there. Are you sure you don't want the newer Rotex RO 150 FEQ and the C15 Li?
 
Alex said:
Just noticed you mentioned 2 older models there. Are you sure you don't want the newer Rotex RO 150 FEQ and the C15 Li?
Click to expand...

As GreenGA correctly deduced, I'm buying all the Festool tools of a local woodworker (FOG member) who recently passed away.  So I don't have the choice in what models are available. 
 
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