Install Oak Hardwood Floors, step by step
Particle board subfloors are not consistently strong under hardwoods – especially when you buy nail-in flooring like we did. Some folks install right over it without any issues while other folks have big problems down the line. Because it is so unpredictable, hardwood manufacturers void the warranty if you install them that way – which was certainly not a risk we were willing to take. According to our initial research, we were left with three not-so-hot options.
- Return the meant-to-be-nailed flooring and buy a meant-to-be-floated floor instead. But after falling hard for the one we picked and our adventure getting it home, we were not eager to take it back. Especially since none of the floating options were as close of a match to our existing wood stairs and hardwoods downstairs.
- Remove the particle board subfloor to (hopefully) reveal plywood underneath. This would’ve been time-intensive (the particle board was laid under all of the door jambs and everything) and it would’ve lowered the level of the floor (making door heights and transitions into the bathrooms weird). It would also cause us to lose the sound deadening effect that this particle board was installed to create in the first place. And we certainly did not want a loud and echo-ey floor upstairs.
- Install plywood right over the particle board. This was most the promising option, except that it too would’ve been time intensive, would’ve raised the floors (requiring us to cut down all of the doors and live with a noticeably high top step of the stairs). It would also carry an extra material cost.
- It has a lifetime warranty, and is guaranteed to last as long as the hardwoods
- It is elastic, so it stretches along with your boards during seasonal changes in temperature (this helps to prevent cracking, gapping, or warping)
- We only needed an exacto knife to install it, which saved us the expense of buying or repeatedly renting a nailer (although we were a little sad not to get to try one)
- It is non-toxic, has no-VOCs, and no odor – which is strong considering it is an adhesive product
Laying the first row is a tricky step, since it sets the tone for how straight your whole floor will be. And you cannot consistently trust your drywall to be straight. So we began building our floor using some of the longest, straightest boards we could find to assist overcome any curves in the wall. Oh, and those are scrap wood spacers against the wall that assist leave an expansion gap around the edge (for when changes in temperature may make the floor expand).
Another thing that helped us feel more confident about our first row being straight was laying it across as long of a wall as possible. For us, this meant taking our first row all the way out into the hallway. Which also meant rough-setting a lot of boards before anything was in fact ever stuck down – simply to make sure they did not look wonky.
Once we felt good about our first few rows being straight, it was time to permanently secure them in place. Here is where that extra flap of plastic comes in handy. You pull on it slowly so that it exposes the sticky Elastilon beneath the floor boards, so the bottom of the boards can be joined to the underlayment, permanently holding them in place.
Once those boards touch the Elastilon, boy are they stuck. It takes a good yank (and sometimes even a pry) to get them loose. So that makes us feel good about the long term hold of this stuff!
From there, it was fairly much the same process – lay a couple rows, bang them in tightly, peel back the plastic so they are secured, and move on. Laying the boards was simply like any floor – the boards have a tongue and groove that slide together, and we used a rubber mallet to tap them snugly into place.
We also used a bit of wood glue on the groove at the end of each plank as suggested, simply to further secure everything.
Oh and we periodically taped the boards together, which was also recommended – simply to discourage slipping or shifting during the install. If there are two of you working on this project, one person might grab boards, run a bead of glue along the end grove (seen above), and hand them to the other person who is clicking them in and hammering them into place. The person on glue duty can also pull the Elastilon every few rows and toss down some tape as you go. That is the grove that Sherry and I got into (and every few hours we switched jobs to keep from getting too sore/tired).
The result? A especially tight gap-less floor that will still flex with fluctuations in temperature without cracking or warping – and it should outlast us. Huzzah!
Except… as plain as the process was, it still was not a swift process. I think our bedroom took us 10 hours to tackle together (across two days) while my parents watched Clara. Granted it was the largest room and it was our first one, but boy did it not inspire much confidence in how swiftly this could get done.
As is the Hands-on way, there are consistently little curve balls. For example, we originally had hoped to not have to remove our baseboards. But when we looked at things more closely, losing 3/4″ of the baseboard behind the floor made them look dorky-short. And we learned that neither quarter round alone (nor baseboards alone) would cover the expansion gap that our hardwoods required in order to keep the warranty in tact. So we pried all of our baseboards up and resigned ourselves to later having to reinstall them with quarter round. Le sigh. At least they are already painted so we will simply have a few small touch ups to take care of.
The good news is that we made plenty of progress over the long weekend and yesterday evening we at last wrapped up. We even got around to adding the baseboards back and placing the quarter round in most of the rooms already. The floors are looking excellent and feeling especially solid.
So much better than the carpet.
More Flooring Projects
If you would like to read about other flooring projects we have done, please check out the posts below:
