If the sub floor above is more than 1 inch thick this rule can be bent in many.
Proper way to lay a hardwood floor.
Installing hardwood floors with a few careful preparations elbow grease and a weekend you can have beautiful new floors.
Installing your floor this way is a general rule and common practice in installations.
Even though design trends are always changing you can never go wrong with a solid hardwood floor.
Apart from a few exceptions like sagging joists this is the preferred direction to lay wood floors because it provides the best result aesthetically.
Jeff hosking a flooring consultant for this old house first began laying floors 35 years ago back then 90 percent of his work was installing solid wood strips with nails.
But now half of the flooring he installs is engineered made of thin sheets of wood glued together like plywood.
Check your sub floor condition.
The correct direction for laying hardwood floors.
When you lay a hardwood floor in your home some of the first things that come to mind are color choices and the type of wood.
You may need to use leveling compound to even your surface.
While personal preference is a factor the direction in which you run hardwood flooring boards is governed by visual and structural guidelines.
Updating a home s flooring is one of the best ways to increase its value.
Make sure you ve got the right amount of flooring for your space.
Fortunately installing solid hardwood flooring isn t a difficult job as long as you have the right tools knowledge and patience.
The most common way to lay install hardwood flooring is by aligning the planks parallel to the longest wall or run in the installation.
When possible begin installation from the straightest longest wall and install the flooring perpendicular to the floor joists.
It makes a house look chopped up and it costs more money to install particularly so in smaller and in open plan homes.
Laying a solid hardwood strip floor is easier and faster if you choose a prefinished product to avoid the extra work of sanding staining and finishing.
When learning how to install hardwood flooring there are a few tips to keep in mind.
As a rule of thumb the floor boards you install should cross perpendicular to the joists under the sub floor.
It should be level and free from rot and other major defects.