DIY Tips for a Successful Floor Project

June’s editorial will go over a few tips for the DIY folks out there as we get into the swing of the DIY season. New flooring is a very common DIY project that can be a great investment for increasing your home’s value, but small oversights can turn into huge nightmares when it comes to wood flooring. Let’s go over a DIY check list to help get that new floor in right.
Preparation
Preparing for the project ahead is crucial. Countless floors have gone from good idea to nightmare project because preparation was not done. Prep for your floor is more than just the actual work to prepare a new room – it is also the research time to find the right floor for your project.
Determining what floor is best is typically a matter of spending some time speaking with flooring professionals or simply reading on the internet, such as this blog here. Some basic questions to answer which will help you narrow down your search:
What type of subfloor will you be installing over?
This will determine what floors you can install and what installation method you can do.
What level of traffic will this floor see?
Higher traffic areas like a kitchen need tougher floors than low traffic areas like a bedroom.
Will this room have heavier furniture, such as cabinets, in it?
This will help determine what format of installation you should look into.
Beyond these questions, once you have chosen a floor, its important to go through the proper measures to prepare your subfloor and flooring. Acclimation and Moisture testing is critical, if your floor and subfloor’s moisture content is not within 4% of each other you are ensuring future failure. Also ensure your subfloor is level – this means FLAT. If that subfloor is not flat, make sure it is before you install your flooring, otherwise you are likely to get some noise and warping.
Installation
Although I will not go in depth with the actual installation process, I will go over some basic principles which will help make your floor project a success.
Measure twice, cut once – if this isn’t a mantra you have already from other DIY projects, learn it now. With flooring, making sure your cut carefully and measure well is big when it comes to limiting the amount of waste from your installation. This includes taking time to dry fit or rack out your floor to plan out your staggering and cuts early. While dry racking, pull from multiple boxes of flooring to help ensure variance in shade and grain patterns.
Snap chalk lines and use them to ensure your floor remains straight. Snap chalk lines roughly 18″ away from your starter wall, then every 18″ from that initial chalk line. This amount will vary based on plank width, but try to have chalk lines for every 3-5 rows of flooring, wider planks you should go for less rows, strip style flooring may require 7-10 rows between each line. This goes hand-in-hand with measure twice, cut once.
Patience is key during installation. Take your time, ensure each plank is snugly fit and that your expansion gaps are in place. Also, make sure you have a stagger pattern going with your floor, with at least 8″ between joints.
Although each installation has its own quirks, but if you follow this basic practice of preparation and patience during installation you will minimize any chance of your new floor failing. Also, make sure you have all of the right tools and again, measure twice, cut once.