Thread: Direct stick timber floor over a large area

Hi

This forum is really informative, I've been reading it now for a while but this is my first post.

I am putting an upstairs extension onto my house and want to have a wooden floor upstairs that matches the existing Jarrah floor down stairs. I am thinking of putting down jarrah 58 x 12mm boards. The upstairs sub floor is 19m particle board flooring.
<o></o>
The lady in the shop assured me they were dead easy to lay. Either trowel out glue and stick them down or put a zigzag bead of glue down each board and put two nails in the end of each one. Then finish with a sealer and Wattle High Gloss Flooring Estapol. I have sanded and polished a couple of pine floors in the past successfully.
<o></o>
After reading a lot I feel there may be a little more to it than that.
<o></o>
The questions I have are:
<o></o>
As I am doing 103 square meters over several adjoining room, should I start at one end and work my way to the other trying to keep the boards going through all the door ways? Or should I stop at each door way and start again with a full board along the next wall. I’d be very lucky if it worked out that I didn’t have to slice boards lengthways to be able to keep going around walls. I’m thinking that in the door ways I should plane the board off to the required size so that I have a complete board along the next wall.
<o></o>
I’ve been reading about expansion gaps and floors buckling. I know I need to leave 10mm around the edges but do I also need to leave some gaps every few meters? If so how often and how big? Do you put a coloured flexible filler into the gap?
<o></o>
Would you suggest the trowel on glue only or zigzag bead of glue and nail approach. The nail approach will work out cheaper, I have a nail gun and I don’t mind the finished look. But if the complete glue will give a sounder finished and less chance of problems down the track…
<o></o>
How long will the boards need to acclimatise? Until there is no moisture in them. Given that it is now winter does that mean I should leave them in small bundles around the room until the weather warms up?
<o></o>
One last thing, the boards I am looking at are called Fully Featured which means they have a fair bit of grain and featured holes which you first fill with a clear two part epoxy resin before sanding and finishing with the Estapol. It looks great in the sample on the show room floor. Any thoughts on this?
<o></o>
Sorry to make this so long, but this will be a bit of an outlay and I want to get it right.

G'day Robo.
Mate, you have a lot of questions that can easily be answered by downloading the data sheet on timber flooring at www.timber.org.au

I think you would be better off trowel glueing with Bostik Ultraset adhesive and secret nailing to the substrate.

19mm Y/tongue is great for installing 12mm T&G.

Direct stick on it's own without nails can be a PITA if not done correctly.

Anyway, have a look at the data sheets and give us a cooee if needed.
Dusty and Larry could probably set you straight on install and finish.

Thanks for that. I've downloaded that timber data sheets. I'll read through them and get back to you with any further questions.

cheers