Cleaning Duraceramic Floors

DuraCeramic is a cross between laminate flooring and ceramic tile. It’s available as individual tiles that can be scored and cut to fit. Since the tiles are flexible, you can install them without a completely level subfloor. Joints can even be grouted to look just like ceramic tile. And because the floor is composed of individual tiles, it’s easy to replace damaged sections. Cleaning Duraceramic... 

Lay Hardwood Flooring in Tight Spaces or Along a Wall

Laying a hardwood floor is not difficult. But one area that may seem intimidating is laying the last few rows. You slowly loose working space as the floor gets closer and closer to the wall. Securing Hardwood Floor without a Toe-Nailer Eventually, the toe-nailer won’t fit or you won’t be able to cleanly strike the hammer face. So how do you nail down your floor? First, there are a few necessary... 

Home Depot Tool Rental Review

I had a bad experience with Home Depot Tool Rental. I attempted to rent a tool and ended up sacrificing about 4 hours of my life. Perhaps this short post will give me some perspective. The Problem Monday’s post was about fixing a jammed floor nailer. Just before that, I decided to rent a nailer from Home Depot. I only had a small area left and I really wanted to finish. So I called the local HD Tool... 

Installing a Toilet on a Hardwood Floor

I’m slowly but surely making progress on the new floor. It’s looking really good and I’m excited to see it come together. Soon I’ll be starting the baseboard and quarter-round. I took a slight detour from the floor to get our half bathroom back in “usable” condition. Not having it available was becoming a real problem. After installing the new floor, the drainpipe flange was about a ¼”... 

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... 

Acclimate Hardwoods for Humidity and Temperature

Fred and I picked up my Brazilian Walnut hardwood floor a few days ago. 27 boxes and they are heavy! I opened one of the boxes for a preview and it looks amazing. I’m very please with the color and variation. Click on the picture for a larger version. Corey, hope this helps you decide. Why Acclimating Hardwoods is Important Now the wood is sitting around my house. Doesn’t seem like an... 

Floor Joists: Solid Lumber, I-Joists and Open Web Floor Trusses

When constructing a house, builders need to decide what type of floor joists to install. Joists are horizontal supports that span from wall to wall, wall to beam or beam to beam. There are several different options including solid lumber, laminated veneer lumber (LVL), wood I-beams, open web floor trusses or steel floor joists. I didn’t even realize engineered alternatives existed until Jocie... 

Self Leveling Underlayments – Achieving Level

Our basement radiant heated flooring install required us to pour a self-leveling underlayment (aka self-leveling mortar or self-leveling cement) over the ThermoTile radiant heating wire to achieve a level surface for tiling. I’ll say up front, our results were not perfect, but I don’t think it is the fault of the product. Read further for details. Our Choice: LevelQuik ES We chose Custom’s...