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Parquet progress (finished)

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Parquet progress (finished)

Postby StevieB » 26 May 2016, 21:17

So I have an interesting little project coming up shortly - laying approx 20m2 of reclaimed teak parquet flooring in our dining room. Photos to follow, but first I have a question! I understand about leaving an expansion gap for the parquet itself and as removing the skirting was not an option I am resigned to fudging this. 12-15mm seems to be the recommended gap and I have a solution for this that while not perfect will suffice I hope.

My question relates to the ply sub-floor. Wooden floorboards with a void underneath and I am putting down 12mm ply as a base for the parquet - do I need to leave an expansion gap between the ply sheets themselves and between the ply sheets and the walls/skirting? I would prefer not to for logistical reasons, but if that is the recommendation how big a gap is necessary? Ply is bog standard spruce (not quite shuttering ply but not hardwood faced either - it is going to be fully covered so didn't see the need at twice the price) and will be screwed into wooden floorboards at very regular intervals but not glued.

Assuming this goes well, I have enough reclaimed flooring to do our hallway as well (approx 15m x 2m) so want to get it right if I can. It has been sitting on the back drive for over a year however, so some indoor acclimatisation also likely to be required - any indication of how long this will need to be indoors before laying? It has been covered with a tarp/groundsheet but I doubt this is fully waterproof.

Steve
Last edited by StevieB on 14 Aug 2016, 21:11, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: expansion gaps

Postby RogerS » 27 May 2016, 05:21

Steve

You might find this thread of interest.

Is all your reclaimed timber outside? How long depends on how wet they are as you say that they might not be fully watertight. Also do you have ch pipes underneath anywhere? If the boards are wet then I'd go for at least three months.

Re the expansion gap...treat yourself to a Fein with a wide blade (well, several!). Lay the teak parquet alongside the skirting board, and Fein your way along. Remove the fillet from the bottom of the skirting board and slide the parquet in. Voila....no visible gap.
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Re: expansion gaps

Postby StevieB » 27 May 2016, 07:45

Thanks Roger.

No central heating under the floor, 2 small rads in the room in the normal manner.

Fein - yes, I considered this, but is still leaves the problem of the door threshold, fireplace, French doors and the fact that if this doesn't go well and SWMBO reverts to carpet or similar my skirting is then starting 30mm up the wall!

Best,

Steve
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Re: expansion gaps

Postby Rod » 27 May 2016, 10:21

A few years back I did a small room using cork compression/expansion strip around the edges then hid that with lengths of quadrant tacked/glued to skirting board.
Lasted ok with no problems but since replaced with carpets.

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Re: expansion gaps

Postby RogerS » 27 May 2016, 10:25

You'll have a problem with your door threshold whether you have an expansion gap or not!

Are your floorboards that moveable/uneven etc that you need the ply?
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Re: expansion gaps

Postby StevieB » 27 May 2016, 13:20

Yup, definitely need the ply!

This image (in no shape or form to scale!) shows my solution I hope - I will cut the 'moulding' from parquet blocks to match, and sit them on a 3-4mm piece of ply strip (not shown). In this way the expansion gap is hidden, the threshold shouldn't be a problem and the timber will match throughout. Quadrant moulding from veneered MDF is not going to look good on solid teak flooring I suspect!

Image

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Re: expansion gaps

Postby RogerS » 27 May 2016, 13:53

What sort of length are you after, Steve, for your quadrant moulding and what wood, ideally. If you tell me the profile and it's doable then I could knock some off for you although getting longish lengths to you might be tricky.
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Re: expansion gaps

Postby 9fingers » 27 May 2016, 15:59

I reckon that 3mm high part of the trim moulding is going to be very vulnerable.
Quadrant as per Rods post is the normal way to do it and pretty rugged.

hth

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Re: expansion gaps

Postby StevieB » 27 May 2016, 22:47

Roger - very kind offer, but I can make quadrant if it comes to that. Thanks though.

Bob - I can up the thickness but didn't want the strip to be too obtrusive. Perhaps making it thicker and rounding it over might be a better approach :eusa-think: I will knock up some test pieces when I have laid the sub-floor and see what they look like.

Took up the carpet this afternoon and found a hardboard overlay on the floorboards already. Not thick enough to level for parquet and it didn't run up to the fireplace anyway so it is coming up!

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Re: expansion gaps

Postby 9fingers » 28 May 2016, 11:48

StevieB wrote:Bob - I can up the thickness but didn't want the strip to be too obtrusive. Perhaps making it thicker and rounding it over might be a better approach :eusa-think: I will knock up some test pieces when I have laid the sub-floor and see what they look like.


Steve


I can understand the compromise. I just thought that 3mm could easily split away from the main section and that legs from furniture, chairs etc could take lumps out of the 3mm edge.
Maybe 6mm with a chamfer to make it less obtrusive perhaps.

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Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby StevieB » 19 Jun 2016, 19:55

If the love of your life ever suggests you lay reclaimed parquet flooring, run a mile! If running is not your thing, read on.....

This job would have been slightly easier if I was not working around SWMBOs piano - having nowhere else to store it however, its a case of work round it but don't, whatever you do, use it to store paint on, cups of coffee, chisels or tiny screws you needed to put somewhere safe where nobody will move them.... inevitably somebody will - probably while swearing about the piano being used as a shelf for paint, cups of coffee and chisels :?

Image

Once we had sorted that little issue it was time to lift the old carpet, and the hardboard that had mapped to the contours of the underlying floorboards and start again with something a bit more substantial - 12mm ply in this case.

Image

Spent ages trying to decide on whether to leave expansion gaps for the subfloor and if so how large, went for a couple of mm in the end as ply should be fairly stable I hope

Image

Careful notching round the door frames...

Image

And done with the subfloor (note the painted skirting as well!)

Image

Even managed to go under the piano!

Image

So with the subfloor laid, time to get on with the parquet itself. An e-bay bargain, I bought this a year or so ago with a view to starting rather sooner than I actually managed to. It has therefore been sitting on the drive under a tarp for 12 months or so....

Image

Image

I bought 5 ton bags of this with the flooring just thrown in. I then stacked it neatly into 3 bags but my word is it messy. The bitumen on the back seems to get everywhere and it smells strongly as well. My stock with SWMBO is definitely at a low point by now. I looked like a coal miner just from moving the stuff around. Anyhow, time to deal with the bitumen. A bit of reading suggested that the best way was simply to scrape it so I set up a couple of battens to hold the blocks and got to it (ooh look - a use for a workmate!)

Image

The battens gave me something to push against and had the added bonus of checking the size of each block. This was an unintended consequence, but it turns out about 1 in 20 are about 10mm shorter than the other 95%. Not quite sure why, possibly from an edge, but it did at least let me put these to one side rather than clean them up. I did 5 blocks at a time. Before....

Image

After....

Image

I reckon it takes about 7-8 minutes to sort out 5 blocks, scrape the sides (freehand, mostly grot that has fallen between blocks for years before they were lifted I suspect) then the bases. At that rate I am doing approx 40 an hour. Base comes up nice and flat but still leaves your fingers black and has an oily texture

Image

Stacked in piles of 50 blocks inside to allow them to fully acclimatise

Image

I am averaging 200 blocks in a day, and need 1200 approx for the dining room, so 3 weekends of full on bitumen scraping - nice. Done 900 so far and am beginning to regret this decision!

Image

It turns out some of the blocks were particularly wet and I have had to put these to one side for a while. Many also have tape on the top surface, being lifted from a sports hall apparently. I have scraped the tape off the top of each block but the top surface is very dull and dirty. No mold or damage, just dirt, old varnish etc. I tried sanding a couple to get a feel for what they would come up like (and because SWMBO is decidedly not impressed by this point) but the sanding belt got clogged very quickly and I am worried that a floor sander is not going to cope very well either. In the end I took a few blocks and gave the top surface a skim through a thicknesser - just enough to remove the top surface...

Image

Much better (but do I really want to skim 1200 blocks through a thicknesser.....) and now SWMBO is looking happier. The stain on a few of these is where I gave them a wipe with sealer as it was all I had to hand, just to see how the grain would come out. These blocks were sold as teak but I am 99.9% sure they are iroko.

So there we are, 300 odd blocks still to go, but it looks as if it might not be a total disaster - fingers crossed!

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Re: Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby Rod » 19 Jun 2016, 23:12

That's quite a job you've taken on and I admire your determination and effort - I'd have given up before starting

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Re: Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby Pinch » 20 Jun 2016, 07:42

Nice progress Steve - all the hard painstaking scraping and prep work will be worth it.

The blocks do look teak'ish to me, although it's difficult to see from the last photo.
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Re: Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby RogerS » 20 Jun 2016, 09:45

That is a real labour of love there, Steve. Rather you than me !
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Re: Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby Andyp » 20 Jun 2016, 10:04

How would the missus feel if you put some of the blocks in the freezer overnight? The bitumen may well become brittle enough to flake off more easily than just scraping.
Caveat:- I have not actually tried this.
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Re: Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby DaveL » 20 Jun 2016, 13:00

I wonder if the blasting with dry ice that Mike is using to get the paint of the old beams would work for you?
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Re: Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby Dan0741 » 20 Jun 2016, 22:05

I know its graft, but that will look phenomenal when done. :eusa-clap:
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Re: Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby StevieB » 20 Jun 2016, 23:07

Thanks chaps. To be honest scraping is not the hard part, it is the mess that is the problem. The bitumen actually flakes off nice and easily. While intrigued by dry ice, scraping is free!

As to why I am persevering? Several reasons:

1) I am stubborn
2) I owe it to the house - it would have been down originally and there is currently none left
3) What else would I do with 3 cubic meters of iroko (or teak) blocks?!
4) I hate wasting timber
5) It was cheap - far cheaper than laminate

If it looks awful then I am happy to take it up and say I tried, but if I don't try and scrap it now then I will wish I had tried in the future.

Small hiatus while I build a squirrel feeding box for a small furry visitor to our bird feeder (SWMBOs orders), then back to it!

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Re: Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby Rod » 20 Jun 2016, 23:38

Is this an anti squirrel feeder - the Grey ones should not be encouraged.
I feed the birds but use feeders that make life difficult for the long tailed rats!
If Red that's a different matter?

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Re: Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby StevieB » 21 Jun 2016, 17:17

Nope, it is a feeder for a squirrel. Why should the grey ones not be encouraged? Currently the little fella pinches the bird nuts so SWMBO wanted a box he could access instead - £15 from amazon or free when made from old shelving off-cuts and a bit pf perspex

Image

Image

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Re: Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby Halo Jones » 21 Jun 2016, 17:48

Great looking start!

This was my effort a few years ago. All reclaimed flooring I got for free. All missmashed and odd widths so had to come up with a pattern for it hence what you see. It is still looking fine (could do with a revarnish) but it hasn't moved at all which is what I was worried about. This hall way is very irregular so fitting the bulk of the floor was straight forward then I spent a couple of weeks on the bandsaw with lots of very fiddly marking and cutting

Image[

Roll on 4 years and I now have 50 sqm of reclaimed flooring to lay which has been drying in our spare room for a year. Plus LOML wants our other hall way similar to the one above "You have managed it once so you can do it again" :eusa-doh:

Good luck with the rest of the job.
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Re: Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby RogerS » 21 Jun 2016, 17:50

StevieB wrote:Nope, it is a feeder for a squirrel. Why should the grey ones not be encouraged? .....
Steve


Because grey squirrels have been described as one of the ‘world’s worst invasive species’ and have caused a decline in indigenous red squirrel populations and damaged forestry in the UK. They have caused so much tree damage in the New Forest that there is now a project under way to eradicate them completely because the woodland is unable to regenerate

They carry the squirrel parapoxvirus that has decimated our red squirrels but does not affect grey squirrels.

Now the role of this invasive species in hosting the bacteria which causes Lyme disease in humans has come under the spotlight in a study by ecologists at the University of Glasgow.

They eat baby birds and eggs and I reckon are the culprits that destroyed the eggs in our swallows nest.

They are definitely right at the top of my 'What shall I use my .22 rifle for today'.

They are vermin.

You did ask :lol:
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Re: Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby Halo Jones » 21 Jun 2016, 17:55

We still have plenty of reds around us so I cringe every time I see a grey. We have a duty to report greys so they can be trapped and gotten rid off.
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Re: Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby Tusses » 21 Jun 2016, 18:06

Halo Jones wrote:Great looking start!

This was my effort a few years ago. All reclaimed flooring I got for free. All missmashed and odd widths so had to come up with a pattern for it hence what you see. It is still looking fine (could do with a revarnish) but it hasn't moved at all which is what I was worried about. This hall way is very irregular so fitting the bulk of the floor was straight forward then I spent a couple of weeks on the bandsaw with lots of very fiddly marking and cutting

Image[

Roll on 4 years and I now have 50 sqm of reclaimed flooring to lay which has been drying in our spare room for a year. Plus LOML wants our other hall way similar to the one above "You have managed it once so you can do it again" :eusa-doh:

Good luck with the rest of the job.



That looks excellent !!!


although .. as with stevieb's .. it will be such a shame , when the carpet goes down :-(
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Re: Parquet progress (was expansion gaps)

Postby StevieB » 21 Jun 2016, 18:52

Awesome looking floor Halo - lovely. I am going for traditional herringbone and double block border, but like you anticipate a lot of fiddling and cutting between the two... Good luck on a matching second floor!

Roger - fair points, but you haven't seen my SWMBO in a paddy so I made the box anyway as she only would have bought one from Amazon. Not so much a .22 as an elephant gun required to stop that ;) I doubt it will last long as water will seep down between the lid and the back and soon rot it out, but by then she may have gone off the idea.

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