I will be installing some Australian Cypress 5/8" prefinished,
semi-engineered (planks are a 2 boards wide and 6' long lamination)
solid wood flooring in my kitchen in the near future. Hardwood is
typically nailed, but I understand that there are now glues available
suitable for this purpose.

Now, the questions.

Pros and cons of gluing vs nailing?

Altrenatives not mentioned above?

Any tips or tricks that y'all wish to share?

Should I buy a manual nailer or rent a pneumatic one (flooring will
cover about 200 sq ft)?

Thanx
Renata

I suggest you take a look at this video. We installed and finished two
rooms recently, and the two videos (he also has one on finishing)
helped up immensely.

http://www.mikestools.com/060055-lay...inger-vhs.aspx

jim

I glued down a bamboo floor on a concrete slab in my house in Florida.
The glue was about $1/sq ft, so it's not cheap. This particular glue
was especially expensive because it had to form the vapor barrier as
well as hold the floor down. It worked great and I loved the finished
result, but if I'd had the option of nailing, I would have done that.

Some reasons:

It's often much easier to cut oddly shaped pieces (i.e. around
doorways) when the adjacent pieces are already in place. Gluing makes
this difficult because you only have a short time to get the pieces in
place once the glue is applied. You pretty much have to have
everything cut just right before putting the glue down. Also, it's
much easier to cut the oddly shaped pieces using trial and error. Once
the glue is down, you don't have the option of putting the piece in
place, then removing and recutting it. It's all covered with glue and
you don't want it anywhere near your saw.

Also, the glue gets in your way. If you lay down the glue for four or
five courses, you have to reach over it and not put your hands or
elbows or knees or feet or forehead in it. It makes for a sore back
(not that nailing will improve that situation much). By the time I
finished I had glue all through my arm and leg hair. That was pleasant
to remove.

The glue smells terrible, and is harmful to breathe. Even with a
respirator, you have to have adequate ventilation. If you're in a cold
climate, you don't want to do this in the winter.

If you ever have to repair a piece of the floor, it's much easier to
take out a piece that was nailed than a piece which is glued. The glue
I used will pull up concrete with it if you try to take it off. I'm
sure it would do the same to a plywood subfloor.

If you're interested in seeing my results check out the pictures at
this link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcaron2...h/tags:bamboo/

Josh

Nice job Josh!

Got an error when I clicked on this.

Server Error in '/' Application.
Runtime Error
Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current
custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the
application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons).
It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server
machine.

Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be
viewable on remote machines, please create a customErrors tag within
a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the
current web application. This customErrors tag should then have its
"mode" attribute set to "Off".

!-- Web.Config Configuration File --

configuration
system.web
customErrors mode="Off"/
/system.web
/configuration


Notes: The current error page you are seeing can be replaced by a
custom error page by modifying the "defaultRedirect" attribute of the
application's customErrors configuration tag to point to a custom
error page URL.

!-- Web.Config Configuration File --

configuration
system.web
customErrors mode="RemoteOnly"
defaultRedirect="mycustompage.htm"/
/system.web
/configuration

Is it me or something else? The suggestion for creating tags on the
local machine, etc is something I've never encountered with a web page
error. What - they think we're all programmers ;-) ?

Renata

On 1 Feb 2006 07:39:47 -0800, "jimg"
wrote:

I suggest you take a look at this video. We installed and finished two
rooms recently, and the two videos (he also has one on finishing)
helped up immensely.

http://www.mikestools.com/060055-lay...inger-vhs.aspx

jim

Thanx a bunch!

The repair part was kinda hovering in the back of my mind, not quite
making it to actual thought and that's the key.

Since it's going over a standard subfloor, nailing it is.

Thanx for the responses.

Renata

On 1 Feb 2006 08:25:53 -0800, "Josh" wrote:

I glued down a bamboo floor on a concrete slab in my house in Florida.
The glue was about $1/sq ft, so it's not cheap. This particular glue
was especially expensive because it had to form the vapor barrier as
well as hold the floor down. It worked great and I loved the finished
result, but if I'd had the option of nailing, I would have done that.

Some reasons:

It's often much easier to cut oddly shaped pieces (i.e. around
doorways) when the adjacent pieces are already in place. Gluing makes
this difficult because you only have a short time to get the pieces in
place once the glue is applied. You pretty much have to have
everything cut just right before putting the glue down. Also, it's
much easier to cut the oddly shaped pieces using trial and error. Once
the glue is down, you don't have the option of putting the piece in
place, then removing and recutting it. It's all covered with glue and
you don't want it anywhere near your saw.

Also, the glue gets in your way. If you lay down the glue for four or
five courses, you have to reach over it and not put your hands or
elbows or knees or feet or forehead in it. It makes for a sore back
(not that nailing will improve that situation much). By the time I
finished I had glue all through my arm and leg hair. That was pleasant
to remove.

The glue smells terrible, and is harmful to breathe. Even with a
respirator, you have to have adequate ventilation. If you're in a cold
climate, you don't want to do this in the winter.

If you ever have to repair a piece of the floor, it's much easier to
take out a piece that was nailed than a piece which is glued. The glue
I used will pull up concrete with it if you try to take it off. I'm
sure it would do the same to a plywood subfloor.

If you're interested in seeing my results check out the pictures at
this link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcaron2...h/tags:bamboo/

Josh

BTW - if there's a fix, or alternative, I'm definitely interested in
viewing.

Thanx
Renata

On 1 Feb 2006 07:39:47 -0800, "jimg"
wrote:

I suggest you take a look at this video. We installed and finished two
rooms recently, and the two videos (he also has one on finishing)
helped up immensely.

http://www.mikestools.com/060055-lay...inger-vhs.aspx

jim

Hmm. The link works for me. If is still isn't working try clicking
right, then copy shortcut. Paste that into the address bar of your
browser. And if that don't work, try googling for Don Bollinger Laying
Hardwood Floors. There's both a book and companion video.

HTH