Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - direction to lay the floor

I was talking with someone early today about laying the floor.

2 things came up.

I plan on laying 3/8, plank strip 3 inches wide

1. From the books and, what I have read on the internet, It has said start along the wall wall....

talking with someone who used to lay hardwood floor, he said I should start from the middle and work my way to the walls

My other question...inclosed is my floor plan. I orig. was going to lay my floor along the length of the floor of 29 feet.

I have a hallway that I would then have to lay perpindicular(sp)

He said i should lay the wood all one way, so that the hallway and the main floor line up. thoughts on this?

I am including a link to a graphic of what my floor plan is. You can see the entrance door, and the hallway doors to the bedrooms along with the sliding glass door entrance

thoughts
thanks
http://images.spotlighthealth.com/floor.jpg

You can always use a tmolding to turn the grain in the hallway, but usually you want to have the wood welcome you when you walk in, so the grain should be pointing forward as you walk in.
where to start? I dont know, i am sure there will be another post under this one real soon dealing with that.

I'm about 2 weeks away from starting my first hardwood flooring project, but I've been researching this for some time now. My space looks remarkably similar to yours, at least in terms of the main room dimensions and a perpendicular hallway.

From what I've gleened, the strips should be installed perpendicular to the joists. In my case, that would put the strips the length of thh hallway and across the shorter dimension of the main room. I'd have preferred that they run the length of the main room as well (with a right angle transition to the hall), but I've found no one who recommends installing parallel to the joists. Which way do your joists run?

I, too, would like to start in the middle of the room or at least about 5 feet from one wall to make sure of where a full strip will fall across the front of my wood stove hearth. Again, everything I've read says to start along a wall. The closest I've found otherwise was to measure to the center then measure back toward the starting wall a multiple of board widths so that you still start near the wall and also still end up with a strip on the center line (hopefully). The problem with starting at the center (at least with t&g 3/4") is that you must nail through the tongue. That only works in one direction if you start in the middle. On the other side, you lead with the groove unless you add a slip spline to the center strip so you can lead with the tongue in each direction.

Good luck to you. I'll be watching this thread for more information as well.

Ray

Ray, luckily, or i should say unluckily it is on concrete. So for me its a glue down install.

Starting in the middle makes sense, The direction though...part of me would like it all to face one way, but, then visualizing it...I think it would be better if i laid the planks the long way, (vertical in the pic) and then in the hallway go horizontal.... but then again I do things bass ackwards all the time. This doesn't seem like something that should be done in the wrong way.
seth

fantastic post...i too am ready to put down a wood floor and thought i had it straight (no pun intended)

installing 3/4" x 3 1/4" white oak-prefinished on a similiar floor plan except that there is a fireplace 1/2-way down the 29' wall. floor joists run parallel to the long wall and i had intended to install with the floor joists rather than across them, simply it looks better...

then in the hallway i would install parallel to the long walls with the wood then running across the joists.

i have added to the existing subfloor, now have 1" of plywood down which is dry, clean and basically level

some guys say always install across the joists, others say go with the best look and if that means installing parallel to the floor joists, then ensure you have min of 1" of solid subfloor.

what do you think, thanks in advance for the great info !

:)

If the sub-floor is solid and 1 inch should do it) you can lay either direction. Lots of houses have been built with 1x sub-floor (3/4 inch net) at 45 degrees to the joists and hardwood placed over them. When this is done the sub floor span is around 22 inches and the hardwood need to be parallel to the joists. A solid 1 inch plywood sub-floor is actually stiffer than 22 inch span 1x.

Hmmm. My subfloor is 23/32" CDX plywood. Are you saying that's thick enough to run the 3/4" x 2-1/4" strips parallel to the joists?

Ray

Some personal preferences.....

1. I like to lay flooring with the long axis of the space. I think it looks better.

2. I like to start in (or near) the middle and work my way to the walls. Walls aren't often parallel and if you key off one wall, you might have some weird cuts when you get to the other wall.

3. I spend lots of time laying things out - particularly around fireplaces, etc. I like to avoid cutting narrow strips if at all possible.

I would lay it for appearance and not worry about the joist direction. Before laying the floor walk on every joist and check for any movement or squeeks. Use drywall screws to fasten any spots down to the joists that move. Be sure to drive them just below flush.

if you lay the t&g parallel to the joists then you will see every ripple in the plywood underneath,the plank needs to be laid perpendicular to the joists for that reason.If this is a glue down then you will need to a moisture test on this slab before any wood goes down. Do a mat test on this to see if there is moisture present.If this slab is below grade then you will need to put this on sleepers or this floor will fail.

Also the floor needs to be laid perpendicular to the joists to have something to nail to cause this ox board or o.s.b. they have now will not hold up the pressure from traffic walking accross this floor.After spending all this money on this floor the last thing you want is to see the waves from the plywood rising and falling between the joists,or ahve moisture related problems from not doing a mat test or calcium chloride test :cool: