Laying Hardwood Floor: Trouble Spots

A few weeks back a couple good friends came over to help me install hardwood floors. It was a lot of work but I’m very pleased with how things are going. The project isn’t complete; a little more in the dinning room, bathroom and hallway closet. We came across a few trouble spots and I like to share how we tackled these problem areas.

Uneven Sub-floor

Most of my sub-floor was uniform and in good shape. I found one instance where two pieces of plywood were not even. The easiest way to resolve this is to drive a few screws into the sub-floor to pull things snug and even. Fortunately, the area beneath my dining room is unfinished. We cut a 2 x 4 and I held it in place while another friend put in some screws. Unfortunately, this did not resolve the problem. The next solution is to use a sander or grinder. Be careful not to remove too much. You still need something to nail (or staple) your floors to.

Hardwood Meets Carpet

I’m laying hardwoods on my entire first floor. This does not include the stairs going up to the second floor. How do you make the transition? One solution is to use quarter-round to hide the transition from wood to carpet. Instead, we choose to put the wood tight against the carpet. We made sure to use the manufacturers edge and hide any cut edges on the opposite side with baseboard. Make sure each board is snug but not more (or less) so than any of the other boards. This will create a professional, uniform looking transition to carpet.

Cutting the Door Jam

Often you’ll find that the door jam is too low for a board to fit underneath. Here is the best way to cut your door jams. Lay a scrap piece of flooring against the door jam. Take a handsaw and cut away the jam using the scrap to maintain the correct height. A typical handsaw will be very awkward to maneuver. We used the Irwin Reversible Flush Cut. It’s a useful tool with an ergonomic handle that will swing around, letting you reverse the blade. The handle made it so easy to use and it saved us a lot of time. The Reversible Flush Cut is available from Amazon for $11.89.

Slip-Tongue to Reverse Tongue and Groove Orientation

We started laying the floor on one side of my house and worked toward the opposite side. This resulted in a few unfinished spaces. The picture shows how we continued the boards from the hallway straight into the bathroom which basically created an unfinished area “behind” us. A slip-tongue is a slender spline of wood that fits into two grooves, allowing you to reverse the direction of the boards. I used a slip-tongue to complete these areas.

Floor not Square with Hearth

I almost assumed that the walls and other various items would not all be square with each other. One of the first trouble spots we came across was the hearth. It wasn’t square with the floor or walls. I choose to use some T-molding transition strip to hide this. By laying the transitions strip parallel with the floor boards, no one will ever know the hearth is skewed.

Hardwood Flooring Tools Information

If you’re considering installing hardwood floors and are looking for a top quality hardwood flooring nailer, check out this post on two hardwood nailers we frequently recommend.  

Also, if you need the compressor and trim finish nailers for this job, just follow that link for a very inexpensive compressor kit available from CPO Bostitch.

What do you think? Are these helpful tips? What tips can you share?

by: Ethan | July 21, 2008 | filed in: Projects
Related Tags: floor, hardwood, lessons, solutions, spots, tips, tricks, trouble

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