Hardwood Flooring - Clic style or not?

[GarthH]

Been shopping for hardwood to replace some carpet in the house. Those sales people all seem to be critical of each others product; sure makes a decision difficult.

I was sold on one product of engineered hardwood with a 9/64th of wood and uses the click technology to put it together. No nails or glue.

I dropped into another flooring store and of course the sales guy was all hyped about a product that had about 3/8 hardwood but needed to be glued if I was to leave it floating.

We are planning on running hot water radiant heating under the floors - we have natural gas planned for next year.

Anybody have experienced with the clic style of hardwood - same technology as laminate flooring? Any concerns about doing the flooring now before the radiant flooring?

Thanks again.

Garth

 

[chh]

I looked at some of those products last year. The engineered product I looked at was multi layered like plywood and was supposed to be very stable in changing temp and humidity situations. The claim was much more stable than a regular hardwood product. That may be something that could influence your decision with having the radiant heat under the floor. I am not sure it is a concern, but have heard it talked about. I ended up not going with radiant heat and old fashioned unfinished hardwood floor nailed to the subfloor.

 

[GaryM]

Do you really want wood, or something that looks like wood? When we built four years ago we were at the flooring contractor's place picking carpet and said we wanted a hard surface for the kitchen, mudroom, dining areas. Looked at some tile products that we didn't care for and walked down the hallway to another room. I looked down and said "what kind of wood is that?" It was a commercial grade vinyl product with a clear grain-textured overlay. It comes in approx. 4.5 inch wide strips that are 36" in length. Because of this it can be laid in most any pattern such as herringbone or what ever you like. At normal viewing distance it's virtually impossible to see that it's not wood. We get complements on our "wood floor" all the time. The contractor said he installed it in office buildings and stores quite a bit.

So look around and see what's there. As an additional comment, the condo my Mom lived in in Florida had a laminate floor and it always seemed kind of slippery if it had the last bit of dust on the surface. And it showed all the dust too.

 

[schmism]

Im NOT a fan of click and stick. What happens after 10 years of wear and tear and the little teeny tiny edges that make the "snap lock" start breaking off under fatigue? look at old fashion toung and grove. in hard traffic areas the tongs have been known to break off.

3/8 would be nice as you can likely do a light sanding and refinish in 10-15 years if the surface needs it (cough you didnt do your maintance cough)

I put down ~1200 sq of bruce tong and grove glue together. It also had the option of useing mastic instead of a custion to limit "clapping" That part killed me. i swore off ever useing mastic again. i ended up cutting back to useing mastic on every 2'.

I have enough faith in the product i used that it will last as long as its maintained.

 

[schmism]

if you want my tips and tricks on what i learned about putting it down from the above, let me know.

 

[Vernonator]

One recommendation i would make is that if you go with pre-finished do NOT get a brand with the "micro groove" on the edges. I believe they do this so the edges do not have to be perfect (since with pre-finished you are obviously not going to sand it down). We have this in our 2.5yr old house and it is the WORST - the grooves fill up with dirt and are impossible to get clean. It will not be too many years and I will pull it all up and do it the old fashioned way - solid wood.

 

[AlanB]

We did not like the "feel" of the floating floors, the couple we did though, we liked the ones the best that had the cushion attached to the wood already (Sams Club) I just looked at one of the original ones we did a couple of years back and it still looked pretty good, but, when the scratches get to be too much, the entire thing has to come out, and be replaced, no resurfacing.

Not sure why you do not want nail down, is it because of the radiant heat?

Last several we have done (two houses, multiple rooms) we did with the bamboo nailed down. Just over $2 sf, solid wood, not a laminate, goes down easy and consistently.

Again, may not be an option for you and not what you asked, but it is what we have been doing and it has worked well for us.

 

[WayneB]

Been shopping for hardwood to replace some carpet in the house. Those sales people all seem to be critical of each others product; sure makes a decision difficult.

I was sold on one product of engineered hardwood with a 9/64th of wood and uses the click technology to put it together. No nails or glue.

I dropped into another flooring store and of course the sales guy was all hyped about a product that had about 3/8 hardwood but needed to be glued if I was to leave it floating.

We are planning on running hot water radiant heating under the floors - we have natural gas planned for next year.

Anybody have experienced with the clic style of hardwood - same technology as laminate flooring? Any concerns about doing the flooring now before the radiant flooring?

Thanks again.

Garth

Is this a DIY project or are you going to have someone install the flooring for you? If you are doing the project yourself I would highly recommend that you go with real wood flooring. More steps to completing the project, but once done you will have a floor that will last a lifetime.

The radiant heating system brings on a few challenges that you will have to address but there are product that you can purchase to for the subfloor that iwll permit installing the flex pipes and a nailing surface for the T&G flooring.

You can price out the flooring at many places. I would suggest you start at Lumber Liquidators. They can also answer a majority of the questions. Good people to ask about the effects of radiant heating on wood floors.

There are forums that you could enter into and discuss your flooring project.

WoodNet Forums: Viewing list of forums

Good luck with the project.

Wayne

 

[chh]

Lumber Liquidators is where I got my flooring. We went with utility grade oak. Cheaper , but requires a lot of fitting and cutting. We do not have anything but wood in the entire house. Different ,but we like it.

There is also a clay tile product out that looks very much like wood(other styles available too)that I am told is very low maintainance and looks very good.

 

[Bird]

In July, we had some carpet removed and laminate put down. Of course, we're on a concrete slab foundation and they put down a "pad" under the laminate. It developed some squeaking in places when you walked on it, so the crew came back early this month, took up a considerable amout of it, cleaned thoroughly under it, and replaced a number of the pieces.

So I still haven't decided if is was a good idea or not.

 

[shaley]

Started this 3 days ago. 3/4 T&G White Oak prefinished at Lowes $2.99 SqFt.
Not bad quality but I've had to cut alot of the end joints square. My hands are too sore to work on it today. I guess the investment in tools may be a factor in which way you go. Get a good flooring air nailer if you go the solid wood route

 

[Wayne County Hose]

One recommendation i would make is that if you go with pre-finished do NOT get a brand with the "micro groove" on the edges. I believe they do this so the edges do not have to be perfect (since with pre-finished you are obviously not going to sand it down). We have this in our 2.5yr old house and it is the WORST - the grooves fill up with dirt and are impossible to get clean. It will not be too many years and I will pull it all up and do it the old fashioned way - solid wood.

I put this floor down almost 5 years ago and am very happy with it. Well, the house burned but that's a different story. We always took our shoes off at the door, as you should with any decent floor. If installed properly, there shouldn't be any space for the dirt to get in. I know that quite a few boards I wouldn't put down because there wasn't a perfect edge. I saved these boards for ends and closets.

 

[GarthH]

Thanks for all of the postings.

It is a DIYer project. The reason for the engineered flooring is the radiant heat. 100% Wood will expand and contract too much with the heating - I'm told

Our last flooring project was done by a pro with a nailer but we had large gaps between the boards in the winter, so I was hoping the click style would move less.

I did a basement a few years ago with laminate - I felt the final product was better than the hardwood. I didn't like the laminate appearance; the hardwood seem to just look better.

Unfortunately we do not have the wood liquidators or Lowes in the area and freight is a killer. My choices are Home depot or the flooring stores. I'm OK with HD but it seems like they do not handle special orders well and the shelf stock is not quite the right color.

The product we are looking at does have cork on the bottom surface. The mfg guarantees that it the click fastening process will hold for at least 25 years and is able to take it apart up to 3 times.

I don't think the nailing is a problem with the radiant heat. One mfg showed glueing, nailing or glueing the boards together on engineered wood. The laminate floor we did seem to be better for gapping than the T&G nailed. It takes a little wiggling with the clic to get it tight but it seemed to stay much better. The wiggling is likely harder on a body than nailing.

Maybe it was the hardwood that we used last time that was the problem. It was prefinished and maybe the T&G was not tight enough?

Garth

 

[AlanB]

I would not throw lumber liquidators out of the equation for shipping. Every time we have used them, they have been the better deal, shipping included.

Our Bamboo came out of Sams Club, not sure how temp would effect it, as it is kind of like plywood, except horizontal.

I was thinking the expansion and contraction would occur due to changes in temp and humidity, which I try my best to keep consistent in the house.

 

[Wayne County Hose]

I had a wood furnace and had an awful time with the gaps in my wood floor the first winter. I got a humidity meter and found the humidity at 15%! I immediately installed a whole house humidifier in the air duct and within 2 weeks, all was good again. I spoke to a real knowledgable wood floor installer that was willing to give advice before I started. He told me that like anything, preparation is key. Flat floor, having the product in the house for at least 2 weeks prior to install, etc. I had a hand nailer for wood flooring. He told me every nail is 2 hits, the first hit sets the board, the 2nd hit drives the nail. I also found that for squeaks, sprinkle some baby powder on the floor and sweep it around into the cracks.

Lots of little tricks with a wood floor, but I wouldn't have any imitations.

In my house fire, the wood floor actually helped. The fire couldn't burn through the wood floor, so it went upward instead of over. If the fire went over, we would have lost absolutely everything. The wood floor did not burn even though the floor joists and subfloor burned completely. The wood floor looked almost like it could be salvaged.

 

[Richard]

I also found that for squeaks, sprinkle some baby powder on the floor and sweep it around into the cracks.

What an interesting little tidbit!!

I'll have to try that once.