Floored
April 22, 2008 Filed in: Recording
Mike installs hardwood
flooring in his control room*.
*Note: This is a picture of a diffusor from my rear wall, not hardwood flooring. I just thought it looked neat.
*Note: This is a picture of a diffusor from my rear wall, not hardwood flooring. I just thought it looked neat.
The seemingly
never-ending construction project I’ve taken on—all
in the name of improving the fidelity of my music,
both personally and professionally—is approaching an
end.
Every step I’ve taken over the past 9 months has brought me just a little bit closer to finishing this behemoth errand. First, the plans were designed. Then, the room was framed. Next, the building inspected. Then, the room was wired. Then, the room was inspected again. Next, the room was ventilated. Then, the room was walled (ugh, now, that was really, really friggin’ tough to do). Then, the room was primed. Next, some minor plumbing issues were addressed. Then, the room was acoustically treated (with some really cool, initially smelly material that was covered with nice fabric). Next, the minor plumbing issues were re-addressed. And, then, finally, the room was floored.
As I write this, it’s almost floored. I have about 50 square feet of flooring to glue down to the concrete subfloor in what can only be called my former garage. If you’ve never installed hardwood flooring in a glue-down manner, it is fairly tricky. It falls just out of the “easy” category and into the “intermediate” difficulty on the construction scale of personal challenge.
I opted to use a 5-ply engineered flooring. There are many different brands out there. I chose the brand that my designer recommended. This kind of flooring allowed for a variety of sub-floors. Because my garage has concrete, I needed a product that would be versatile and also look good.
Originally, we had planned to make the centerline of the room a single seam of the hardwood. This plan was changed about a week before installation began. There were some safety concerns about cutting long strips of hardwood. We opted for an easier second option: to run the wood perpendicular to the centerline. The room is oddly shaped, so, at the ends of each row, an angled cut was required to make it fit. That angled cut was much easier to complete at the ends of each plank, rather than through the meat of each plank.
Much effort was put into making the subfloor as clean as possible. During the wall priming stage, a lot of paint spilled on the floor. Also, the floor had gobs of drywall compound spattered throughout. Because the manufacturer recommended adhesive was urethane based, having paint on the floor is a big no-no. So, as a result of not using a drop cloth at any stage of construction, it took me a solid two and a half days (spread out over a week or so) to properly clean the subfloor. Having a clean subfloor made the installation much easier. It makes sense. If the adhesive is only touching concrete and wood, you’ll have a clean bond.
The manufacturer recommended adhesive was nary to be found in my city. So, I made a special order for it. This took a little bit of time, but I felt like the wait was worth it. A word about adhesives…you’ll need about a gallon for every 50 square feet of hardwood. This, of course, depends on the product. But, I’ve found that to be about the rule for this kind of thing. And, although the 3.5-gallon bucket seems like a good deal, unless you are able to get 175 square feet done in a few hours, I’d recommend buying on a gallon-by-gallon basis. The reason is that so much of the adhesive cured directly to the sides of the container before I could get it spread out. I wasted about 2.5 gallons out of 7 in my first few days. Spreading out the adhesive a gallon at a time is more efficient, especially if you are working by yourself.
Another good tip: make your daily stopping point an endpoint (this is usually a wall). I made the mistake of stopping mid-floor after my first day. When I picked up again the next day, the tongue and groove of the new pieces didn’t match up at all. This was because some of the adhesive had expanded and cured on the sides of the planks. The solution was to scrape the adhesive away…for about an hour…before the tongue and groove would match up properly. That was a real drag—urethane adhesive tends to bond to things. This could have been prevented if I had reached a wall at the end of the first day. When that’s not possible, and your last row is in the middle of the floor, be sure to clean up any adhesive that is left over from the last row application. There shouldn’t be much, but it’s normal for a little to seep out and touch a groove.
In regards to working with adhesives, if you never used a urethane or cross resin adhesive, know that it’s probably the stickiest substance you’ll ever encounter. The first day, I didn’t use gloves. This was a big mistake. My hands were caked with the stuff. It took four days of scrubbing with all kinds of different compounds to get this stuff off. Even worse, my hands stuck to everything I touched. What worked for me was buying some throwaway garden gloves (about a dollar a pair) and lining the gloves with a latex glove sub-layer. This way, I could have the garden gloves for adhesive and trowel application. And then, I could take those off and still have my skin protected by the latex gloves for when I laid the planks in.
Always check your adhesive and flooring instructions for the proper trowel size. This can be a real drag if you have to get a specialty trowel. Ideally, the best thing to do is to special order ALL of your materials when you place your flooring order. This will keep your wait time to a minimum. Recommended trowel sizes vary with the product.
I’m using a nice, natural oak look for my floor. Initially, I was a bit concerned that some of the planks came together with a 1/32” to a 1/16” gap, regardless of if painter’s tape were used to hold it all together. The manufacturer mentioned to me that hardwood is different from the perfect look of laminate flooring. The slight variation in gap sizes is natural and part of the look. So if you get a little gap or two, it’s OK. For my taste, anything over 1/16” is questionable and should be redone.
Also, if you have an error, either in the amount of adhesive laid down or in how the planks come together, the time to fix it is two-minutes ago. That stuff cures fast. The sooner you fix the problem, the better the result will be. The end of the day is a good time to do a thorough and critical inspection of your work. At the end of my third day, some of the planks had shifted under a drop cloth. Thankfully, I was able to shift and correct the problem before the adhesive had cured fully.
I’ve found that I reject about 10% of a box. Either from my personal error, curved boards, or from a bad cut, I don’t have any reservation about discarding some of the flooring. Granted, the rejection rate is much more forgiving than plain lumber, but still, it’s wood.
Next to drywalling, the flooring has been perhaps the next most challenging construction activity. Kneepads help correct the body mechanic errors that cause most of the delayed soreness. Kneepads go a long way. Don’t do a day of flooring without them.
All in all, I’m very pleased with how the flooring has gone in. It was a real challenge for me, as was just about everything else in this project. And, the end is in sight. I’m thrilled that I’m approaching the end.
Every step I’ve taken over the past 9 months has brought me just a little bit closer to finishing this behemoth errand. First, the plans were designed. Then, the room was framed. Next, the building inspected. Then, the room was wired. Then, the room was inspected again. Next, the room was ventilated. Then, the room was walled (ugh, now, that was really, really friggin’ tough to do). Then, the room was primed. Next, some minor plumbing issues were addressed. Then, the room was acoustically treated (with some really cool, initially smelly material that was covered with nice fabric). Next, the minor plumbing issues were re-addressed. And, then, finally, the room was floored.
As I write this, it’s almost floored. I have about 50 square feet of flooring to glue down to the concrete subfloor in what can only be called my former garage. If you’ve never installed hardwood flooring in a glue-down manner, it is fairly tricky. It falls just out of the “easy” category and into the “intermediate” difficulty on the construction scale of personal challenge.
I opted to use a 5-ply engineered flooring. There are many different brands out there. I chose the brand that my designer recommended. This kind of flooring allowed for a variety of sub-floors. Because my garage has concrete, I needed a product that would be versatile and also look good.
Originally, we had planned to make the centerline of the room a single seam of the hardwood. This plan was changed about a week before installation began. There were some safety concerns about cutting long strips of hardwood. We opted for an easier second option: to run the wood perpendicular to the centerline. The room is oddly shaped, so, at the ends of each row, an angled cut was required to make it fit. That angled cut was much easier to complete at the ends of each plank, rather than through the meat of each plank.
Much effort was put into making the subfloor as clean as possible. During the wall priming stage, a lot of paint spilled on the floor. Also, the floor had gobs of drywall compound spattered throughout. Because the manufacturer recommended adhesive was urethane based, having paint on the floor is a big no-no. So, as a result of not using a drop cloth at any stage of construction, it took me a solid two and a half days (spread out over a week or so) to properly clean the subfloor. Having a clean subfloor made the installation much easier. It makes sense. If the adhesive is only touching concrete and wood, you’ll have a clean bond.
The manufacturer recommended adhesive was nary to be found in my city. So, I made a special order for it. This took a little bit of time, but I felt like the wait was worth it. A word about adhesives…you’ll need about a gallon for every 50 square feet of hardwood. This, of course, depends on the product. But, I’ve found that to be about the rule for this kind of thing. And, although the 3.5-gallon bucket seems like a good deal, unless you are able to get 175 square feet done in a few hours, I’d recommend buying on a gallon-by-gallon basis. The reason is that so much of the adhesive cured directly to the sides of the container before I could get it spread out. I wasted about 2.5 gallons out of 7 in my first few days. Spreading out the adhesive a gallon at a time is more efficient, especially if you are working by yourself.
Another good tip: make your daily stopping point an endpoint (this is usually a wall). I made the mistake of stopping mid-floor after my first day. When I picked up again the next day, the tongue and groove of the new pieces didn’t match up at all. This was because some of the adhesive had expanded and cured on the sides of the planks. The solution was to scrape the adhesive away…for about an hour…before the tongue and groove would match up properly. That was a real drag—urethane adhesive tends to bond to things. This could have been prevented if I had reached a wall at the end of the first day. When that’s not possible, and your last row is in the middle of the floor, be sure to clean up any adhesive that is left over from the last row application. There shouldn’t be much, but it’s normal for a little to seep out and touch a groove.
In regards to working with adhesives, if you never used a urethane or cross resin adhesive, know that it’s probably the stickiest substance you’ll ever encounter. The first day, I didn’t use gloves. This was a big mistake. My hands were caked with the stuff. It took four days of scrubbing with all kinds of different compounds to get this stuff off. Even worse, my hands stuck to everything I touched. What worked for me was buying some throwaway garden gloves (about a dollar a pair) and lining the gloves with a latex glove sub-layer. This way, I could have the garden gloves for adhesive and trowel application. And then, I could take those off and still have my skin protected by the latex gloves for when I laid the planks in.
Always check your adhesive and flooring instructions for the proper trowel size. This can be a real drag if you have to get a specialty trowel. Ideally, the best thing to do is to special order ALL of your materials when you place your flooring order. This will keep your wait time to a minimum. Recommended trowel sizes vary with the product.
I’m using a nice, natural oak look for my floor. Initially, I was a bit concerned that some of the planks came together with a 1/32” to a 1/16” gap, regardless of if painter’s tape were used to hold it all together. The manufacturer mentioned to me that hardwood is different from the perfect look of laminate flooring. The slight variation in gap sizes is natural and part of the look. So if you get a little gap or two, it’s OK. For my taste, anything over 1/16” is questionable and should be redone.
Also, if you have an error, either in the amount of adhesive laid down or in how the planks come together, the time to fix it is two-minutes ago. That stuff cures fast. The sooner you fix the problem, the better the result will be. The end of the day is a good time to do a thorough and critical inspection of your work. At the end of my third day, some of the planks had shifted under a drop cloth. Thankfully, I was able to shift and correct the problem before the adhesive had cured fully.
I’ve found that I reject about 10% of a box. Either from my personal error, curved boards, or from a bad cut, I don’t have any reservation about discarding some of the flooring. Granted, the rejection rate is much more forgiving than plain lumber, but still, it’s wood.
Next to drywalling, the flooring has been perhaps the next most challenging construction activity. Kneepads help correct the body mechanic errors that cause most of the delayed soreness. Kneepads go a long way. Don’t do a day of flooring without them.
All in all, I’m very pleased with how the flooring has gone in. It was a real challenge for me, as was just about everything else in this project. And, the end is in sight. I’m thrilled that I’m approaching the end.