# Forum Home Renovation Flooring  Info and tips for laying hardwood t&g floor boards

## Skinah

Here is a write up of how I have installed my solid hardwood T&G flooring and a collection of tips I came across when learning how to install the floor as a complete newbie. 
Subfloor photos and information are found here.. https://www.renovateforum.com/f203/p...resses-119279/ 
If you get confused about moisture content talk, or how to work out how to use air temp and humidity to work out moisture % content of timber, or why acclimation is important this link covers it pretty well... https://connollys.com.au/acclimatising-timber-flooring/
What advice you don't find easy to come by is that it is best to keep your house in a 4% or less range of moisture content over each year AND it is also best to lay a timber floor at the middle of the yearly swing. This is to reduce the chance of cupping/crowning and keep gaps to a minimal size.  
After tracking my house's air temp and humidity for a full year I found I ranged from 50% humidity @ 24 degrees in summer to 68% humidity @ 16 degrees in winter. If you look these up in the table found at the above link you will see it means the timber moisture content will range from 9.2% to 12.8% meaning this is a 3.6% total change over a year and it meant I wanted to install when the timber reached around 11% moisture content for best results. This is the middle of the expansion that my boards will have each year. My house is moving up and down in the range of 58-60% and 16-18 degrees during the timber installation so I seem to be hitting this nicely. I have found I keep getting advice from sales people in timber yards that tell me I need to lay the timber asap and not to acclimate at all as it is already perfect from the timber mill and the longer I wait the more the timber is going to buckle and move before it is laid making the laying harder. Just ignore advice like that as you are going to get it a lot if you install your own timber floor. Another one is that you can not secret nail 130mm wide boards, which is false it is just very much harder to do correctly without experience. Hopefully I get it right. 
Better put some photos up now as talk on acclimating timber is boring, but it is important... Here is how I stacked the timber for > 2 weeks inside the house whilst it is lived in to keep the air temp and humidity stable. The stacking is to allow air to move into the center of the stack so all pieces reach an even moisture content that is the same as the room and the subfloor. You can also purchase thin pieces of timber and place between the boards and run them all the same way, both ways are good the main aim is to allow air to reach all boards and flow around the top and bottom of each board. 19mm thick timber should reach EMC in 2 weeks. The recommendation is to wait 2 weeks AFTER laying the boards before sanding to allow the boards to adjust to the microclimate that is in that room, ie direct sunlight hitting some boards and not others.    
Before ordering you need to know how much extra to add to the order for not only wastage, but also if you wish to be picky on removing boards which have slipped through the grading process or if you wish to turn a standard grade into an in between grade like "standard and better". I found my wastage from cutting was <3% as the boards came in random lengths and end matched, 5% extra is the recommendation if you use the end matched boards, or 10% if you cut the boards to end only over battens ie if you are top nailing. Adding extra was a good idea as I wanted standard and better grade and ordering 10% allowed some boards to be removed.  
A piece of info that was hard to come by was that it is best to start laying boards in the MIDDLE of a room and not start at one wall and lay to the other. Reason for this is the secret nails act like a tent peg and restrict the movement in one direction! So laying the first row in the centre allows the boards to shift more equally towards both sides of the room and not trying to place more expansion movement towards only one of your walls. So a chalk line was snapped down the exact middle of the room and I found I had 19mm more distance from this chalk line to the wall when comparing both ends of the chalk line. To fix this I used knife blades to create a < 0.9mm gap at one end of the row of boards and no gap at the other end of the row. Hopefully the photos clear this up if my writting does not make sense. Both sides of the chalk line were out this same amount to each wall because the room is not square. This is another advantage to laying from the center of the room. Measure the distance between the walls and make a mark in the middle, do the same at the other end of the room and mark the middle and then snap a line between these two marks, very easy and quick. Then work out if you need to offset this line to end up with full or close to full boards at each wall. 
I used offcuts that came as spacers in the pallet of timber to nail to the floor as stoppers to prevent movement when the secret nail gun shoots a nail in, otherwise the row shifts. You will also see in this photo the knife blades which have handy holes in them to aid in removing them with a punch and claw hammer. Place punch through the hole and use the hammer to pull up like your pulling out a nail. You can also see the chalk line and how the first row was offset to ensure a full board at the doorways and both sides of the hallway all looked even.   
Since I was working by myself I found the best way was to pump glue out in a bead from a sausage gun, trowel it out and then lay a row or two and then repeat. A 3 or 4mm V notch trowel is the recommendation if secret nailing wide boards. Boral have a PDF guide that covers installation and some info on wideboard secret nailing with glue. Link here.. http://www.boral.com.au/brochures/ordering/PDF/12285_Timber_ProdGuide_LR.pdf?pdfName=12285_Timber _ProdGuide_LR.pdf    
Picture showing the SPLINE aka slip tongues that I cut up out of scrap. These are used to change directions so you end up with a board that has TWO TONGUES. This MUST be done and secret nails shot into both set of tongues, otherwise you end up with twice the distance between nail rows and you will have issues. PVA glue the spline in, use offcuts to support the tongue whilst it drys and then shoot secret nails in with a scrap piece supporting the tongue either side of the nail gun.    
Another trick is how to secret nail when the gun does not fit close to a wall. 
You can buy these but they only work with the T shaped nails and I did not want a tool that would never get used again.. http://www.powernail.com/products/power-palm/ 
So instead of that tool I invested in one of these for $70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoelBIlYuVg
Bostich PN-50 Palm nailer. I then used it to drive home hot dipped galv nails in at a 45 degree angle after drilling a pilot hole 0.5 to 1mm smaller than nail diameter. It drives the nail in most of the way and then hand punch the last 1mm. Doing this saves the paint job on your walls and lots of bruised hands  :Smilie:  Another tip is drill the holes BEFORE placing the board into the glue, otherwise you can use a 90 degree drill attachment to drill as you go which I found easier.  
If doing this by yourself, you can use special flooring rachet strap clamps designed for hooking over the tongue and groove without damaging anything. Seen in this pic I have used them to pull out any spring (curves in the timber) to remove any gaps, if working with a second person a chisel works well and if a lot faster, but at times the timber needs some extra help to pull out a spring in the board. Two of these clamps help a lot.

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## CraigandKate

Great tips thanks for taking the effort to write it up

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## NRB

Very good post,thanks for your very detailed explanation 
A great lesson all can learn from

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## Skinah

Glad u found it useful/interesting. Found these videos today which show some very nice extra wide boards, how they are made with a tour of the factory and the installers are very professional. 
Part one https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iXSsnKIwDxs 
Part two https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NTs9U3l-MLc 
Cost of my floor is probably going to be around $160 per square meter of floor when finished mostly due to freight costs as I am not in a metro area. Also currently blackbutt is in demand and this seems to have pushed prices up and made it harder to source.

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## ChocDog

Good write up Skinah, and your floor is looking great. What's it going to get coated with?

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## phild01

I didn't read this properly so please excuse me for not understanding.  You start laying from the middle, so are you secret stapling the board's groove side as well!?
Looking good.

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## Skinah

> I didn't read this properly so please excuse me for not understanding.  You start laying from the middle, so are you secret stapling the board's groove side as well!?
> Looking good.

  Yes the starting board in the middle of the room has SPLINE installed so you create a board with two tongues from a normal board. Also when laying down a hallway into a new room you also have to do this. I changed direction three times and ended up with a flawless run of boards through multiple rooms and hallways. Video I linked to in my last post shows this.

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## Skinah

> Good write up Skinah, and your floor is looking great. What's it going to get coated with?

  Yeah the boards look great and they are not even sanded yet, cant wait to see them done. I'm not sure yet on coating but I am leaning towards a hardwax oil finish in a satin, maybe treatex brand. Don't want gloss or matt and would prefer to be able to spot fix problem areas from pets and chairs getting dragged around. We also have the boards in the kitchen around the sink to consider... I have used some offcuts to create a few sample boards and will try to get some different products to see what the results look like. Local shop seems happy to pore a small amount into a jam jar of their finishes for testing.

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## phild01

> Yes the starting board in the middle of the room has SPLINE installed so you create a board with two tongues from a normal board. Also when laying down a hallway into a new room you also have to do this. I changed direction three times and ended up with a flawless run of boards through multiple rooms and hallways. Video I linked to in my last post shows this.

  How was the spline done...another strip of timber glued in?
(Sadly 40 mins of video is too much for my quota).

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## Skinah

Yes another piece of timber is glued in and supported with scrap timber whilst glue drys and you leave it supported when using the secret nail gun like a normal tongue. If you google flooring SPLINE you will get written info and pictures that clear it up. i used a table saw to cut the spline to 6.2mm by 10.5mm from scrap that was cut off boards close to a wall.

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## Skinah

Another few tips with photos.. 
Because walls are not straight, this technique is called scribing and is a lot faster to cut the boards to be perfectly spaced out from the plaster. You lay the boards up to the very last one, then place the board you wish to custom trim to fit and follow the wall contours perfectly on top of the previous board. Then take an offcut and cut it to length that is the width of a board PLUS the clearance gap you want. For example for a 130mm wide board with a 12mm gap at the wall, cut the scrap to 142mm. The place this board agains the wall and draw the line on the board which will be the line to cut. Work your way along the board and you will have the perfect cut board with 12mm gap to the wall without picking up any measuring tools. 
[IMG][/IMG] 
If your board has a spring in it (bowed along the length) you can use wedges cut from scrap to push the board into place and hold it whilst the glue drys. Make sure the grain of the wood is running long ways in the wedge as show in picture, otherwise they can snap off and become harder to get back out. I used plastic wedges for a while but they damaged the timber, so use your scrap wood and you also get a better result.  
[IMG][/IMG]

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## Greenwood

Hey mate thanks for the great info. 
Just wondering how the boards are holding up, any cupping etc with the wide boards as everyone seems to think?
Also where did you get your timber from and did you use the Boral specific for wide boards being secret nailed? 
Sent

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## Skinah

Boards are going great could not have gone better. it is time to give the hard wax oil a sand and new coat for the first time. Waiting for summer to do that.
Boards do move as will any timber and around the wood fire I get the most gaps due to fire drying out the timber and this is normal movement. No issues with wide boards being secret nailed so long as you use suitable glue and get full coverage under the boards just Like laying tiles. Never have to punch nails when I have to resand, and it looks better. 
The timber came from my local hardware store but it was sourced from Hurford Hardwood mill. 
Good luck finding the timber after the bush fires.

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## JB1

> Hey mate thanks for the great info. 
> Just wondering how the boards are holding up, any cupping etc with the wide boards as everyone seems to think?
> Also where did you get your timber from and did you use the Boral specific for wide boards being secret nailed? 
> Sent

  I don't think many people think cupping is an issue with wide boards. 
Cupping is only an issue if there is too much moisture or gets flooded. 
Or if the timber was too dry and not acclimatised when installed. 
Sent

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## glock40sw

Looks good. Blackbutt is readily available. The bushfires didn't hinder supply.
Shame the same can't be said about Spotted Gum...

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