How To Lay Engineered Wood Flooring On Joists

Keep joints that line up at least two rows apart.

How to lay engineered wood flooring on joists.

If you can feel some deflection you have two options. Making the right decisions before you lay your flooring particularly in a situation where you re laying flooring directly over joists is always time well spent. Here s how to install click lock engineered hardwood flooring. Wood floor fitting over joists.

A normal 3 4 floor without a subfloor is going to bounce like a rubber ball if you lay directly over the floor joist. The most common way to lay install hardwood flooring is by aligning the planks parallel to the longest wall or run in the installation. To answer directly to the question yes it is entirely possible to install a hardwood directly on top of the joists. Apart from a few exceptions like sagging joists this is the preferred direction to lay wood floors because it provides the best result aesthetically.

Use 1 2 inch spacers to assist in maintaining the 1 2 inch expansion gap between the first row of flooring planks and the wall. If you are planning an engineered wood flooring installation on a ground floor it is important not to install your flooring directly over a ventilated cavity. This is the typical structure of a floor. It is also advised that long length boards 6ft or 1 83m are used.

Join the ends of the boards over a floor joist where possible avoiding joints that form an h. If raising the floor height is not a problem you can install a layer of 1 2 inch plywood over the existing 3 4 inch plywood. Both solid wood and engineered can be. Either solid wood flooring or engineered wood flooring can be laid directly onto joists if the planks are at least 18mm thick.

Install hardwood floors perpendicular to the floor joists parallel to the longest wall leaving a inch expansion gap around the perimeter. Put the first board up against the mason s line with the groove side facing away from the walls. The other option assuming you have access to the open joists from below is to install 2x4 blocking between the joists 24 inches on center. They didnt use a plywood in older homes it was a 1x4 on a diagnonal then a finished floor went over that.