Installing Your Engineered Oak Flooring
The pride and joy of your home is the gorgeous floor that you intend installing. The engineered oak flooring is a perfect complement to your walls, the wooden-frame windows and the antique doors that you’ve hung. Now the challenge - how to properly install your engineered oak flooring.
Engineered oak flooring offers an alternative to the more expensive solid oak flooring which takes months, even years to cure and mature. The engineered alternative makes use of softer, more pliable wood as a base and only a thin top of oak to give it the oak look. This also means that the flooring is easier to install and can therefore be done, literally, overnight.
To start off, you will need the right implements for the task. The main tools that you will need are a hammer, pry bar, razor knife, table saw and a trim nail gun. Your next tool is determination and imagination. You need to look carefully at the layout of the floor and fit the boards to match the look that you’re aiming for.
It is also important to have strips of moisture barriers. This will prevent your floor from warping due water or damp. With these in hand, start laying the boards, snapping them into place and being liberal with the moisture barrier strips. Be careful to place spacers between the boards to allow for expansion and contraction due to heat and cold.
Keep on laying the boards until you reach the opposite wall. Here you may need to cut the board smaller in order to fit into the space left over. The table saw will be handy for this little task. Remember to leave about 3/8 inch space between the board and the wall. This is necessary in order to later move or remove the flooring. Using the trim gun, reinstall the trim that you’ve cut off and fill in the gaps.
The process seems fairly straightforward, but it requires intensive concentration and physical work. The flooring boards are not light and can be difficult to move around and handle. However, there is a lot of satisfaction to be had once the floor has been successfully installed.
Engineered oak flooring is easier than solid oak flooring to install due to its flexibility and softness. It is more pliable and therefore easier to manipulate into place. It is also not so difficult to saw when needed.
If installing your own floor isn’t something you relish doing, there are always experts who will be prepared to help you. If it is something you like doing, the rewards of seeing the installed floor are great. It also has quite a lot of bragging value.