Brother-in-Law has installed a floor using Wickes' Kiln Dried Tongue and
Groove flooring. He used a secret nailing machine to nail through the
tongues and a strap thing to compress the boards. Neil was afraid
that, being kiln dried, the boards would swell. But a number of the
boards have shrunk and split. Wickes' sent a bod to inspect the floor
and told Neil that the boards must be fixed with nails through the face
of each board into the joists and are refusing to replace it. And they
say that the packet states this. Unfortunately Neil has chucked the
wrappings but when he went to check in a Wickes' he noticed that the
labels are a different colour (red rather than yellow or vice versa) and
do say that you must nail through the face. Neil's observation (minus
expletives) is what is the point of fixing T+G with visible nails?
Wickes' declined to comment.


Any views? Neil's customer is, not unreasonably, refusing to pay the
£1000 for the floor.


TIA

Richard

"Richard Savage" wrote in message
.. .
Brother-in-Law has installed a floor using Wickes' Kiln Dried Tongue and
Groove flooring. He used a secret nailing machine to nail through the
tongues and a strap thing to compress the boards. Neil was afraid
that, being kiln dried, the boards would swell. But a number of the
boards have shrunk and split. Wickes' sent a bod to inspect the floor
and told Neil that the boards must be fixed with nails through the face
of each board into the joists and are refusing to replace it. And they
say that the packet states this. Unfortunately Neil has chucked the
wrappings but when he went to check in a Wickes' he noticed that the
labels are a different colour (red rather than yellow or vice versa) and
do say that you must nail through the face. Neil's observation (minus
expletives) is what is the point of fixing T+G with visible nails?
Wickes' declined to comment.


Any views? Neil's customer is, not unreasonably, refusing to pay the
£1000 for the floor.


TIA

Richard

===================
There's nothing unusual about fixing T&G flooring with visible nails if you
consider 'cut' nails as visible. In fact I would guess that nailing through
the face of the timber is by far the most common method of nailing flooring.

Having said that my experience of timber from Wickes is that it's rather
inferior quality compared with what I buy from a proper timber merchant. I
would suggest that your brother-in-law points out to his customer that
timber is a natural material with a natural tendency to split and he's got
the job / materials he specified and should pay up.

What size is this floor? £1000-00 seems a lot of money for a softwood floor.
I did two rooms and a hallway in my 'semi' for about £250-00 but of course
that doesn't include labour.

Cic.

Richard Savage wrote in message
...
Brother-in-Law has installed a floor using Wickes' Kiln Dried Tongue and
Groove flooring. He used a secret nailing machine to nail through the
tongues and a strap thing to compress the boards. Neil was afraid
that, being kiln dried, the boards would swell. But a number of the
boards have shrunk and split. Wickes' sent a bod to inspect the floor
and told Neil that the boards must be fixed with nails through the face
of each board into the joists and are refusing to replace it. And they
say that the packet states this. Unfortunately Neil has chucked the
wrappings but when he went to check in a Wickes' he noticed that the
labels are a different colour (red rather than yellow or vice versa) and
do say that you must nail through the face. Neil's observation (minus
expletives) is what is the point of fixing T+G with visible nails?
Wickes' declined to comment.

The method of fixing isn't going to make much difference if the material is
too wet or too dry for the location. IME, if you nail through the faces, you
get more splitting.
"Kiln dried" implies less than 15% moisture content, but how much less is
never specified. A first floor would probably shrink, whereas a ground floor
covered in vinyl would be more likely to swell because the timber would be
more attuned to outdoor conditions.

Barn door and all, but how long where the boards left
in the room before they were laid? All my bad experiences
with laying wood on floors were when I didn't give it
enough time to acclimatise to the room in which it was
to be laid.

Al

Thanks All,

In no particular order:

I did ask Neil about acclimatisation and he grunted!

I suspect that the £1000 was for 'supply and fit', as to the area; I've
no idea.


As to the % moisture etc well, I expect that Neil will put it down to
experience!


Cheers Richard