Need some help with my new pine floor boards.
The instructions say to use a screw through the tongue on each board/joist, and to leave a gap around the edge of the whole floor. All ok so far. But, should I also leave a gap between each board, ie. should each board be fully engaged at the tongue/groove of the adjacent board, or should I leave a mm or two so that each board can expand relative to it's neighbour?
I'm thinking that if they are tight against each other, and are individually screwed, then expansion of the board may cause them to buckle if they expand.
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you are thinking right, they need a gap. The width of the gap depends on the width of the board. My 5" boards have 3mm gaps.
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It may interst you to Google "acclimatise floorboards",
as an example, altho not strictly relevant, it will give you some ideas of the potential problems (:
www.woodworkforums.com/f77/solid-timber-floorboards-acclimatisation-23012/
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I had a look at the wood working forum above, and they say acclimatise the boards for a good period before laying. They also say wider boards (mine are 160mm) should be nailed from the top as well as hidden, and pulled tight to each other.
The instructions that came with my boards says to leave them in the room un-opened for 48 hours, then only open the pack just before laying (they also mention the RH of the wood is 8%). And only use complete packs in one go. Ha, I read the instructions as far as leave for 48 hours, and went ahead and unpacked them all.
The existing boards have a gap, but it may be because they're 100 years old.
I think in the forum above they're talking about hard wood, and not pine, so not sure if it makes a difference.
Surely though, the boards will pull tight when they're 'hidden' screwed?
At the end of the day, it's just an area of the floor I'm doing, and the new boards aren't the same size as the existing ones anyway. The whole floor slopes in all directions and isn't anywhere near flat as the joists were just set on the ground 150 years ago, so the final finish isn't crucial. Think shabby chic, but without the chic!
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>>My 5" boards have 3mm gaps.
How multi-cultural !
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Isn't that what you should be filling the gaps with?
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Only if Monty Python's done with it.
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Laying floor boards - Zero
