If you want to lay new or update old flooring, then you have a lot of materials and methods for their installation. Each of them has advantages and disadvantages. Progressive flooring schemes have tangible technical and technological advantages, but many apartment and house owners still prefer an ordinary floorboard, which is practical, environmentally friendly and aesthetically pleasing.
Wood is created by nature itself. This material is capricious, but contributes to the optimization of the indoor microclimate. Some difficulties can be caused by laying, but if you follow the technological rules, the floors will be ready to last a long time and will not cause complaints.
Base type selection
Laying the floorboard can be done on almost any type of floor. Support pillars with lags can act as a basis. You can use as a rough coating:
- moisture resistant plywood;
- concrete floors;
- lags;
- old wooden floor.
Concrete floors are often covered with polymer screed. If we are talking about lags, then they are usually installed on top of a screed or an uneven layer. Sometimes lags are located on brick supports. Laying the floorboard can also be carried out on a roll of sawn timber of the 2nd and 3rd grades.
The whole range of work on arranging the floor usually ends with the installation of a wooden coating. In the room by this time, doors and windows should be installed. This is due to the fact that the material reacts to changes in humidity and temperature. As for the humidity of the material itself, it should not be more than 12%. The wood will deform if the humidity in the separate room is more than 60%. If this level drops to 40 or less, then the boards will dry out and become covered with cracks.
Before you start laying the floorboard, for three days it must be brought into the room and freed from packaging. Boards should be laid, but not nailed to the rough surface. This will allow them to acclimatize.
Used tools
To date, several methods are known by which it is possible to unite the boards together. They differ in the devices used, but in general the principle is the same.
The easiest solution is to use a hammer and an ax. Some craftsmen use wedges, while others use metal clamps. A fairly convenient device for laying the floorboard is a car jack. On sale you can find special Bowrench and Bowjak levers. But if you plan to carry out the work only once, then you can use the mount.
Laying the board floor on the logs
The most popular board flooring scheme is lag. They are wooden blocks of rectangular cross section. Fastening can be carried out to the rough surface using adhesive mastics or self-tapping screws. Logs should be perpendicular to the floorboard.
As soon as the system from the timber is built, it should be leveled, planed, and then put wood chips under separate sections, which will allow them to be overestimated if necessary. Sometimes the logs are laid in an innovative way using a beam, which is equipped with devices for adjusting the height.
Moisture-proof plywood base
Laying the floorboard can be carried out on moisture-proof plywood. In this case, the material is impregnated with a hydrophobic material. Draft material is located on any surface, including logs. This is especially true if additional fixation of the multilayer structure is necessary.
The traditional installation of the board on top of the plywood is carried out after leveling the rough base. Plywood is pre-cut into longitudinal segments and set diagonally with respect to stacked boards. Fixing is carried out with screws or dowels. Technological seams are left between the plywood sheets around the room.
If laying a wooden floor will include the installation of plywood, then it can simply be glued to the screed. To do this, the rough surface is leveled using wood flooring or cement mortar. When using adhesive technology, it is necessary to choose a binder composition that will be compatible with the type of rough base and with the insulating layer.
After the installation of plywood is completed, its surface is polished, and then dirt and dust are completely removed from the sheets. Before installing the boards, soil should be applied, only then the floor board is fixed. It is again polished and coated with varnish, oil or paint.
Using an existing floor as a rough coating
Laying a wooden floor can be done on top of an existing floor. Before starting this work, the reliability of the fastening of the elements should be checked. If the fasteners do not inspire confidence, then worn boards should be dismantled, and instead, lay inexpensive lumber from pine.
Experts recommend removing old boards, and pour screed on their surface. If the reliability of the base is beyond doubt, then this step can be neglected, but the material is pre-ground. Another technology is to install plywood sheets on old boards.
Heat and waterproofing the floor
Do-it-yourself laying of the floorboard on the first floors is necessarily accompanied by work on thermal and waterproofing. Refusal of these events is possible only in the case of a heated basement. Insulating materials can be basalt wool and fiberglass. They are placed between the bars, lags and covered with vapor permeable waterproofing.
Between the lower plane of the plank floor and the surface of the layer, which is laid for insulation and waterproofing, it is necessary to leave a 2-cm ventilation gap. The multilayer construction with a coating of boards is protected from moisture that may come from the basement. To do this, you can use a waterproofing membrane, which has a high vapor permeability. This value should be 800 g / m 2 . If free circulation of fumes is excluded, this will protect the wood from rot. For the installation of floors made from natural organics, it is not recommended to use a plastic film that is not able to pass steam.
Wood selection
Before you make a purchase, you need to think about which floorboards are suitable. The most durable material is oak or Siberian larch. They well withstand adversity and perfectly tolerate external influences. Choosing a softer aspen or alder, you can lay boards in rooms with a low load, this should include lounges and children's rooms.
Flooring boards can be made of fir or pine. Such products are rarely used for flooring; more often they are used for roughing or rolling. Geometric parameters are selected taking into account the preferences of the owners. Strength must be considered. The most optimal thickness value is 40 mm.
You should not save on material that did not pass chamber drying. This can lead to the fact that the material will dry out, and the screws will be pushed out. The choice of lumber of one sort or another depends on the goals of the owners, the purpose of the premises and the methods of subsequent finishing. Premium boards have a flat surface and an attractive structural pattern. After installation, such a coating is simply varnished.
For lovers of the natural beauty of wood, boards of the first and second grades, where there are knots, are suitable. If you want to simplify the technology of laying the floorboard, then you need to purchase sheet pile material. It has spikes and grooves, but boards with straight edges are rarely used. They are connected end-to-end, and after a while they will be ready to disappoint the owners with curvature and cracks on the surface.
Mounting technology
Laying the floorboard on the logs is carried out by placing the products parallel to the stream of light from the windows. If the work is carried out in corridors or vestibules, then it is necessary to arrange the boards along the motion vector. Installation can be carried out in a run-up or without displacement of the elements.
In the first case, you should ideally trim the elements. Without experience, it will be difficult to maintain a right angle. To simplify the task, you should use a template with which you will indicate the line of cutting. Around the room should be maintained technological indentation. Between the walls and the flooring, leave about 2 cm for longitudinal movement. After completion of installation work, the seams are closed with a plinth.
Work procedure
Laying the floorboard in the house is carried out by the method of arranging the first product with a spike against the wall. This will facilitate the cohesion of the elements. The second product is connected to the first method of combining the spike with the groove. Fastening is done with nails, the caps of which can come out over time. In order to avoid this, it is better to use 60 mm screws, the optimum diameter of which is 4.5 mm.
Mounting can be done in one of two ways. The first involves a tilt of the screw at 45˚. The second technology is the installation of fasteners on top with the sealing of the caps with sealant. This approach is more reliable, but the first is more aesthetic.
All methods of laying the floorboard, which were described above, include fastening the elements around the perimeter with self-tapping screws. At the final stage, the boards are sanded with 180 grit sandpaper. If there are significant irregularities, looping should be performed.
Screed laying. Using a massive board
The screed for solid wood should be flat, durable and dry. As for strength, for a cement-sand base, this figure should be 6 MPa in tension. If under the described conditions the screed is not strong enough, it will peel off, voids will appear in it, and the floor will begin to creak. As for dryness, the residual moisture of the rough coating should not be more than 2 CM-%. If the humidity is excessive, then the slats will deform over time, and the floor surface will swell.
Laying the floorboard on the screed is carried out after cleaning the base. Adhesion to an unpurified surface will be rather weak, which will negatively affect the quality of the coating. As soon as preparation is completed, packs with boards are opened, and material is removed outside. Having dedusted the surface, it must be coated with a polyurethane-based primer. The composition will close the pores and prevent the penetration of moisture.
The creation of a waterproofing barrier is carried out by the method of laying foamed polyethylene. If the room has warm floors, then a screed for laying a massive board will do just fine. In this case, the substrate will act as an additional barrier to heat, therefore, it is not used here. Only after the leveling layer has completely dried up can the surface be primed.
Methods for laying the board on the screed
When installing the board on the screed, you can use two methods, one of them is floating, while the other is glue. In the first case, the boards are interconnected, but not fixed to the base. This approach is more appropriate to use in small rooms with low traffic.
Is it worth it to apply glue
Glue can be used if you want to achieve a long service life of the coating. This method allows you to mount products on rough floors with curved contours. The boards can be reliably fixed to the coating, and additionally they will be interconnected by a locking system.
Finally
Board floors today remain quite popular, despite the fact that all new materials and solutions have recently appeared. You can lay such a coating yourself, using special devices that every master can find in his arsenal. However, for their lack of power, you should not expose the board to mechanical impact, which could harm its appearance. Be sure to use wooden linings if you plan to tamp the position of the elements with a hammer.