Fitting Oak Flooring On Concrete Sublfoor

More and more people choosing oak floor to be laid at their houses want to install it over concrete subfloor. As far as concrete is concerned, there are several issues that you will need to pay attention to.

Firstly, you should consider for how long the concrete has been there. It is extremely important that concrete should have a moisture content of below 4%, no matter what wood flooring you will choose. If you do not adequately dry out the concrete subfloor before laying the floor, the concrete will keep drying out as the flooring has been laid. The moisture level will go up, which will bring about problems with your new oak floor.

The concrete subfloor which has been sufficiently dried will help you avoid that. The next thing you need to do is to decide how you are going to fit your oak flooring. The choice of the fitting method can influence the type of oak flooring that will be most appropriate for your household.

The method that is most popular when laying floors over a concrete subfloor is glueing. This procedure consists in using an adhesive for firm adhesion of the floor to the concrete. If you’ve chosen this method, you can go for solid oak flooring, but it’s generally not advisable to glue boards whose width exceeds 120 mm.

The type of flooring that, in our opinion, would be most suitable for this method is engineered oak flooring. In this case, boards guarantee higher stability, making the floor much more appropriate for glueing. You also need to remember that a proper adhesive must be used to guarantee adequate installation. For this purpose, we would recommend MS Polymer Wood Flooring Adhesive. This product guarantees full adhesion and, at the same time, has sufficient flexibility to allow for natural contraction and expansion of the wood.

A different fitting method that can be used for fitting a floor over a concrete subfloor is floating. This method consists in glueing the tongue and grooves of each board together without directly fixing them to the subfloor. This floor installation method is recommended only in the case of engineered oak flooring. Remember that a solid oak floor is not suitable for floating.

In the case of a concrete subfloor, there is also an option of laying sufficient battens and fitting the oak flooring over the top. Then, you can fit the boards with the use of the screwing/nailing method.

If you have further questions regarding purchasing a new floor or you are looking for a piece of advice about the best wood flooring for your home, feel free to contact the ESB sales team. Contact us now to request your no-hassle no obligation-free samples, or come down to our North London showroom for a closer look.