By updating the flooring in your home, you can increase its value. It’s hard to lose style with solid hardwood floors, regardless of design trends. With the right tools, knowledge, and patience, installing solid hardwood flooring isn’t difficult.
I have gathered seven tips in order to help you install solid hardwood flooring quickly and professionally over the years. You should leave solid hardwood flooring inside the house with the boxes open for at least a few weeks before installing it. The wood needs to acclimate to the environment after installation to prevent cupping or shrinkage. To ensure my hardwood floor’s moisture content was within 1% of the subfloor’s rating, I tested it with an inexpensive moisture meter.
Remove Baseboard
You should remove the baseboards before installing hardwood flooring. You lose height on your baseboard when you undercut your base, and the process is time-consuming. Consider replacing or upgrading your baseboards as part of installing hardwood floors. Score the top edge of the old baseboards with a utility knife. Using a small trim pry bar, remove the baseboard. Keep the baseboard on-site if you are going to reuse it, or remove it if you are going to replace it.
Prepare Subfloor
Subfloor preparation may take as long as hardwood flooring installation, depending on the type of flooring. In case you are replacing your carpet, remove the underlayment and tack strips. Pry up a corner of the carpet with pliers. Keeping some of your carpets might be a good idea if they are used in other parts of the house as well. Often it’s difficult to find an identical carpet after a few years, and the carpet you’re taking out already has the same wear pattern as the carpet you’re replacing.
Subfloor Arrangement
Check for nails, underlayment, and uneven subfloors before you begin installing solid hardwood flooring. I use a large steel scraper or steel dustpan to make sure the floor is as clean as possible. You can tell if you hit anything uneven with the scraper or dustpan. Furthermore, make sure that the edges of your subfloor are sanded to ensure that they are smooth. If your subfloor is damaged or too thin, you may need to add a layer of plywood. Preparing the subfloor before installing solid hardwood flooring makes the job much easier (and more enjoyable).
Racking Floor
The floor must now be laid. Trends have changed over the years, but the fundamentals have not. Solid hardwood flooring is always installed by following these guidelines:
- Your joints should not touch each other on your floor. A minimum of two rows should also be used to separate them. Older homes may have joints every other row, but I like to keep them at least two rows apart.
- Rack (or lay out) your flooring before you begin nailing or stapling. In my experience, I always lay out at least six to twelve rows before nailing, and if the room wasn’t too big, I would rack an entire room. I would find it much easier with two people.
