Floating timber floor

[Darryl]

Okay, so I've got 600 l/m of cypress pine T&G boards (end matched), and 100 l/m of 50x50 cypress stacked in the shed. I'm going to lay the 50x50's at 450 centres, probably liquid nails them down to the 7 year old concrete floor, then predrill and hand nail the T&G boards using 50mm long 2.5mm bright steel nails. Then I'm gonna punch and fill the nails (Timbermate)and seal it somehow.

The questions are:
Should I Ramset the "bearers" to the concrete floor?
If so, why can't I only fasten down the perimeter and let the rest float?
Does it matter if the free edge is the tongue or the groove as it is being laid (in case I'm missing something)?
Everyones telling me " get those suckers down quick or you'll regret it" (warping, brittleness etc). If I've stacked it in the shed and covered it with a tarp it should hold for 4-5 weeks eh?

Sealing. Mum watches some pommie lifestyle programme and sees a finish called "white limewax" which she likes (it's gonna be her floor). Can anyone suggest a way of achieving a limed, satin finish that is durable and practical? (That pommie show worries me with their ideas, they aren't even up on PPE).

Any other suggestions will also be appreciated.

[Eastie]

If they's secret nail type boards you're cretaing a lot of work by nailing clean through the top of em and punching all of em in at least 3mm !

Have a look at this - not sure if there is aus equiv.
http://www.nofma.org/

[Gino]

Darryl

Not sure I understood everything you wrote about. but here's my 2cents worth.

I have laid approx 120sq metres onto chipboard and not concrete.
So how you would do this excatly I would not like to say, other than you don't glue the boards directly onto the concrete but onto secured bearers. FOR THIS I would recomend calling the Timber Advisery centre as I gave them a call before I started my job. There should be one up in QLD too if not call the Melbourne one.
I would not use liquid nails to glue the floor boards onto the bearers because while it will hold just fine you don't get the flexability you would get with another type of glue (if your interested I'll chase up what I used as I can't remember right now)

Wheather they are hidden nail boards or NOT I would treat them the same way and secret nail them. I did this with my none secret nail boards and they worked out just fine and I even had a bloke who does it for a living and has a very good reputation tell me to do it this way.
The reason to secret nail them is so that you don't have to worry about compacting/cramping the boards together as the secret nailing gun will do this for you.
And this will save you a load of time.
The other reason to secret nail is so you don't have to do all the things you said you were going to do to the boards Ie predrill hammer counter sink and putty.
p.s I have no problems in seeing nail holes it's just that secret nailing is so much quicker and it will las just as long.

The last thing I would like to say is I stored all my timber inside and not outside.
Reason for this is so that the timber can aclimatise to the room/house. By doing this you will significantly reduce shrinkage and thus seeing gaps in the floor boards.

home this has been of help

regards

Gino

[Gino]

I forgot to mention I left the timber inside for two weeks and stacked in a way that air could flow through the boards.

also my timber was not end matched and I still managed to put it down with out problems. Just align the edge of the secret nailer to the edge of the board and presto.

I did it 10 months ago and no problems yet.

g

[soundman]

one thing that hasn't been mentioned is leaving expansion clearance arround the edges, have no idea how much but you cover it with the skirting.

also be sure the slab is continuous and you don't doo anything wierd to breach the termite barrier.

we've had two houses in our street get very bad termite damage after renovations & extensions via compromised expansion joints ect

[KevM]

Darryl,
You should be able to get a brochure on laying timber strip flooring. I attended a trade seminar last week where it was recommended that ALL concrete slabs should be sealed with a water proofing compound or membrane to guard against a leaking pipe in the future.

A gap of 10mm is required between the edge of boards and any vertical barrier and also every 6 metres. Your nails will be too small, the Australian Standard requires 50 - 2.8 mm bullet heads for hand driven nails. Any glue used must be Elastomeric(I do not believe that Liquid Nails is).
Also check out this site http://www.tastimber.tas.gov.au/brochure/view_brochure.asp#type3 (a great 4 page brochure on laying timber floors).

Kev