Yellow tongue direction

[DrRazzle]

Hi all,

I am going to lay some yellowtongue in my hall which is about 1000mm wide. YT seems to only come in a width of 900mm. Question is, should I lay it long ways down the hall (to its full 3600 length) with a 100mm wide strip down one side, or cut it into sections and lay "width ways" in 900mm segs (which would match the 450 joists)...

Thanks for you help in advance

Raz

[silentC]

Which way do the joists run? You should lay it perpendicular to them so that the tongue and groove is at 90 degrees to the joist.

[DrRazzle]

Man you are quick!

The joists run across the hall so I will go with the 900+100 method.

Cheers,
Raz

[silentC]

Of course, if you could work it so that your joins fall in the centre of a joist, and there are always at least three joists under each sheet, then that would probably be a good outcome too. In fact, if you did that, you don't need the tongue at all because that's how you do a butt join on long runs.

The main thing is to not have the tongue and groove un-supported for any length greater than your joist span, hence the standard practice of laying perpendicular, with staggered joins.

Since your joists run across the short dimension of the room, I'd probably do it that way if it works out with the sheet width.

[DvdHntr]

Either way I would have run it long ways and just cut in some trimming members to support the sheet. Why make 8 unnecessary cuts? You could just fill the gap of 100mm with a strip of flooring if you have any extra, otherwise just get some 19mm timber to fill the gaps.

[silentC]

Why add trimmers when you can just make 8 cuts? Make 8 cuts (not sure there are 8 anyway, you only need 4 bits at 900xhallway width to do 3600) with a circular saw up on horses from a standing position, or get down on my hands and knees and belt nails into flooring members - I know which I'd rather do.

Sorry to disagree, but I think doing it all with Structaflor and not offcuts of floor boards or whatever and cutting it in to the joists is a better job and supported by the manufacturers installation instructions.

[DvdHntr]

Fair enough. Depends on the set up but when I installed flooring at home, cutting the flooring was hard. Obviously not the case for everyone.