Eusebius wrote:

It's major decision time, guys and dolls, and I need a bit of advice
here. I have a 3 bed flat, two largish rooms and two tiny, small hall,
small kitchen, small bathroom. I've been donated some maple reclaimed
flooring - probably do one room and a bit more, so starting with
reception/living room. I plan to leave the existing wooden floor which
is under carpets right now, and consists of 6 inch pine planks,
unfinished with holes between the planks (?original shrinkage). I don't
intend to use that because I want some soundproofing and anyway it's
pretty basic looking.

Questions:
a) I'd like a layer of soundproofing - I'm a musician and on 2nd floor.
Don't plan on anything very noisy like acoustic piano, but use electric
keyboard (can use control volume). So what soundproofing to use - most
damping for least height preferred - can you suggest types and
suppliers pref. in W.London area.

b) This is going to add height, so to keep all surfaces in the flat the
same I'll have to add height right through - maybe stone floors in
bathroom etc. Anybody forsee problems with this?

c) I have a nice chap to fit it - jobbing handyman who already fitted
the rest of the reclaimed flooring at a mate's place, so he knows the
problems. There's original glue on the flooring so some of the tongues
and grooves won't fit, others don't go right in. He cleaned up as best
he could in laying it, and where the wood didn't go right in he planed
off the tongues, or if the two surfaces didn't come flush he filled in
with a mixture of PVC and sawdust. I saw his floor, and though not
perfect, it looked pretty good. Question - will anything clean up the
tongues and grooves fairly quickly, e.g. a router used on either the
tongues or the grooves or both?

d) In my mate's place he nailed the flooring onto the old
beams(joists), having taken up the old floor. In my place he'd be
nailing through the soundproofing layer into the pine floor - do you
foresee any problems with the nails holding, or the maple planks
moving?

e) Using nails doesn't make it a floating floor - what am I going to
lose from the soundproofing angle - a lot or a little?

Have to give the fitter a date to start, and want some information on
all the above, so all help very, very welcome. Thanks in advance. Andy

Youve got options, one of which is to remove the existing floor first.
This would mean no change of height plus a lot of wood flooring you can
relay without gaps. Old pine flooring usually cleans up nicely.

If doing that you'd put mesh down before the wood, plus rockwool
between the joists on the mesh so the boards compress it to some
extent.

This means you've got most of the wood you need already, the batch of
maple would probably be all you need, and no door choping etc


NT