Installing Hardwood Floors Parallel To Joists' title='Installing Hardwood Floors Parallel To Joists' />The Correct Direction for Laying Hardwood Floors Home Guides.The joist structure usually determines the best direction to lay flooring boards.While personal preference is a factor, the direction in which you run hardwood flooring boards is governed by visual and structural guidelines.Visual congruity usually requires the boards to run away from the main entrance of a room, but structural integrity mandates that they run perpendicular to the floor joists.When installing a floor in an entire house, the structural requirement may constrain you to maintain a certain direction throughout unless you fortify the subfloor.Sightlines. Running the flooring boards from the main entrance of a room toward the opposite wall simplifies the sightline and makes the room appear less busy.SAM_0414-400x533.jpg' alt='Installing Hardwood Floors Parallel To Joists' title='Installing Hardwood Floors Parallel To Joists' />It is therefore the preferred choice in most cases.When installing a floor in an entire house, the main entrance is usually the sightline reference, and the boards run away from it.If you maintain the same direction throughout the house, the boards may run across the entrances of some rooms.Although you can always change the flooring direction in doorways to prevent this, you must also take joist direction into account.Structure. Flooring experts recommend installing flooring boards perpendicular to the floor joists in a house with a plywood subfloor.Installing them parallel creates the possibility that the floor will sag between the joists and open gaps between the boards or worse.If you prefer a layout that requires the boards to run parallel to the joists, you need to shore up the subfloor by adding a layer of 38 inch plywood.Older houses with 1 inch planks running diagonally to the joists can support flooring planks running parallel to the joists.If the subfloor is a concrete pad, these structural considerations dont apply.Installing Flooring Diagonally.A diagonal installation is as stable as one that runs perpendicular to the joists, and it creates an interesting visual effect that works especially well in large rooms.While a 4. 5 degree diagonal is the most common, it isnt the only possibility.A floor that is slightly skewed with respect to a wall perhaps as little as 1.Diagonal installations are more work and require more wood, because you produce more unusable offcuts when making angled cuts.Considerations. When laying out the first row of flooring, its important to take into account the possibility that the walls arent straight.If you use a doorway or single wall as your sole reference, you may find yourself compensating for a large angle at the end of the installation.This not only makes more work for you, but also affects the appearance of the floor.AsktheBuilder. com Hardwood floor installation can be slowed by an uneven subfloor.Before installing hardwood floors, employ the use of a straight edge.Types Solid Hardwood flooring.Solid hardwood floors are made of planks milled from a single piece of timber.Solid hardwood floors were originally used for.This is 34 Hardwood Maple Flooring Im using for a job in progress.I like the fact that I can actually see the tree in these boards.The dark area is called.The ideal direction for the flooring may therefore be at a slight angle with respect to a doorway rather than perpendicular to it.To find the angle, youll need careful measurements of the walls in all the rooms in which you run flooring.About the Author.Chris Deziel has a bachelors degree in physics and a masters degree in humanities.Besides having an abiding interest in popular science, Deziel has been active in the building and home design trades since 1.As a landscape builder, he helped establish two gardening companies.Photo Credits. David SacksLifesizeGetty Images.Wood flooring Wikipedia.An example of solid wood flooring with a top coating of polyurethane.Wood flooring is any product manufactured from timber that is designed for use as flooring, either structural or aesthetic.Wood is a common choice as a flooring material and can come in various styles, colors, cuts, and species.Bamboo flooring is often considered a form of wood flooring, although it is made from a grass bamboo rather than a timber.Hardwood flooringeditSolid hardwood floors are made of planks milled from a single piece of timber.Solid hardwood floors were originally used for structural purposes, being installed perpendicular to the wooden support beams of a building known as joists or bearers.With the increased use of concrete as a subfloor in some parts of the world, engineered wood flooring has gained some popularity.However, solid wood floors are still common and popular.Solid wood floors have a thicker wear surface and can be sanded and finished more times than an engineered wood floor.It is not uncommon for homes in New England, Eastern Canada, and Europe which are several hundred years old to have the original solid wood floor still in use today.Solid wood manufacturingeditSolid wood flooring is milled from a single piece of timber that is kiln or air dried before sawing.Depending on the desired look of the floor, the timber can be cut in three ways flat sawn, quarter sawn, and rift sawn.The timber is cut to the desired dimensions and either packed unfinished for a site finished installation or finished at the factory.The moisture content at time of manufacturing is carefully controlled to ensure the product does not warp during transport and storage.A number of proprietary features for solid wood floors are available.Many solid woods come with grooves cut into the back of the wood that run the length of each plank, often called absorption strips, that are intended to reduce cupping.Solid wood floors are mostly manufactured.Other wood manufacturing styleseditRotary peeleditThis process involves treating the wood by boiling the log in water.After preparation, the wood is peeled by a blade starting from the outside of the log and working toward the center, thus creating a wood veneer.The veneer is then pressed flat with high pressure.This style of manufacturing tends to have problems with the wood cupping or curling back to its original shape.Rotary peeled engineered hardwoods tend to have a plywood appearance in the grain.Sliced peeleditThis process begins with the same treatment process that the rotary peel method uses.However, instead of being sliced in a rotary fashion, with this technique the wood is sliced from the log in much the same manner that lumber is sawn from a log straight through.The veneers do not go through the same manufacturing process as rotary peeled veneers.Engineered hardwood produced this way tends to have fewer problems with face checking, and also does not have the same plywood appearance in the grain.However, the planks can tend to have edge splintering and cracking because the veneers have been submerged in water and then pressed flat.Dry solid sawneditInstead of boiling the hardwood logs, in this process they are kept at a low humidity level and dried slowly to draw moisture from the inside of the wood cells.The logs are then sawed in the same manner as for solid hardwood planks.This style of engineered hardwood has the same look as solid hardwood, and does not have any of the potential problems of face checking that rotary peel and slice peel products have, because the product is not exposed to added moisture.Engineerededit. Wood flooring is a popular feature in many houses.Engineered wood flooring consists of two or more layers of wood adhered together to form a plank.Typically, engineered wood flooring uses a thin layer lamella of a more expensive wood bonded to a core constructed from cheaper wood.The increased stability of engineered wood is achieved by running each layer at a 9.This stability makes it a universal product that can be installed over all types of subfloors above, below or on grade.Engineered wood is the most common type of wood flooring in Europe and has been growing in popularity in North America2.The several different categories of engineered wood flooring include All timber wood floors made from multiple layers of sawn wood.Most engineered wood flooring is in this category, and does not use rotary peeled veneer, composite wood such as HDF, or plastic in their construction.Veneer floors use a thin layer of wood over a core that is commonly a composite wood product.Acrylic impregnated wood flooring uses a layer of wood that is impregnated with liquid acrylic then hardened using a proprietary process.Laminate and vinyl floors are often confused with engineered wood floors, but are not laminate uses an image of wood on its surface, while vinyl flooring is plastic formed to look like wood.Comparison of solid wood with engineered woodeditIt is difficult to compare solid wood flooring to engineered wood flooring due to the wide range of quality in both product categories, particularly engineered.Solid wood has some limitations.Recommended maximum widths and lengths are typically 5 1.Solid hardwood is also more prone to gapping excessive space between planks, crowning convex curving upwards when humidity increases and cupping a concave or dished appearance of the plank, with the height of the plank along its longer edges being higher than the centre with increased plank size.Solid wood CANNOT be used with underfloor radiant heating.However extra care is necessary with the planning and installation of the heating system and the wood flooring, such as limiting the temperature to 8.F 2. 9 C, avoid sharp temperature fluctuations, utilizing an outdoor thermostat to anticipate heating demands, and monitoring the moisture content for the subfloor before installation.There are some characteristics that are common to each category solid wood is more frequently site finished, is always in a plank format, is generally thicker than engineered wood, and is usually installed by nailing.Engineered wood is more frequently pre finished, has bevelled edges, is very rarely site finished, and is installed with glue or as a floating installation.Engineered wood flooring has other benefits beyond dimensional stability and universal use.Patented installation systems allow for faster installation and easy replacement of boards.Engineered wood also allows for a floating installation where the planks are not adhered to the subfloor or to each other, further increasing ease of repair and reducing installation time.Engineered flooring is also suitable for underfloor and radiant heating systems.Installation systemseditWood can be manufactured with a variety of different installation systems Tongue and groove One side and one end of the plank have a groove, the other side and end have a tongue protruding wood along an edges center.The tongue and groove fit snugly together, thus joining or aligning the planks, and are not visible once joined.Tongue and groove flooring can be installed by glue down both engineered and solid, floating mostly engineered only, or nail down not recommended for most engineered.Click or Woodloc systems there are a number of patented click systems that now exist.These click systems are either unilin or fiboloc A click floor is similar to tongue and groove, but instead of fitting directly into the groove, the board must be angled or tapped in to make the curved or barbed tongue fit into the modified groove.No adhesive is used when installing a click floor, making board replacement easier.This system not only exists for engineered wood floors but also engineered bamboo and a small number of solid floors such as parador solido click and is designed to be used for floating installations.It is beneficial for the Do It Yourself market.Floor connection system There are a wide range of connection systems, as most of them are mill specific manufacturing techniques.The general principle is to have grooves on all four sides of the plank with a separate, unconnected, piece that is inserted into the grooves of two planks to join them.The piece used for the connection can be made from wood, rubber, or plastic.This installation system allows for different materials i. 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