• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Chris' Parquet Flooring Project.

C

Chris Bates

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Hello,

I’m about to embark on a parquet floor project of approximately 33M2. Consisting of Lounge, Hall, and Office (Small Bedroom).

I had planned to do the Hall and Lounge only and had brought enough reclaimed parquet for this. 26m2 + 16% wastage. I’ve cleaned off the bitumen off the back of the majority of these. It was a messy, boring and hard work.

Oak, herringbone pattern, with 2 rows of stretchers around the border.

I now plan to complete the office as well, but unfortunately the reclamation yard hasn’t enough to complete the office, in the same blocks. This brings the total to 33m2 + wastage.

I’m considering using a darker wood, for the stretchers around the border. Padauk or teak ? I’m unsure if it will look “naff” or classy. Any views anyone ?

It’s intended to remove the skirting board, lay parquet and then refit skirting.

I have read with interest SteveB’s post.

Has anyone successfully completed a similar project ? Any nuggets of advice anyone ? I will have no doubt several more questions.

I intend to post my progress inc photos, if members are interested.

Thank you in advance.

Chris

Parquet%20Plan_zpsfj68rcmo.jpeg


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Blocks graded with bitumen cleaned off.

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Blocks sanded with a coat of Danish Oil to establish their colour.

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Blocks before sanding

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Lounge corner, several sample blocks.

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Hall, sliding cupboard doors.

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Hall Front door.
 
Chris, cant say whether it wil look naff or not, need the wife for that sort of opinion.

Most definitely want to see pics of the progress.
 
Good luck with this - as you can see from my post on parquet, it is a time consuming job but worth it in the end. If I was doing it again I would consider laying myself but getting someone who knows what they are doing to give it a final level/sand - those sanders can be vicious.

top tips from my experience -

use the proper adhesive, well worth it

do it a section at a time, rather than being greedy and trying to lay a room in a day - tap one block and the whole lot shifts on you

be prepared for gaps of 2mm or so to appear as you lay - these can be filled with dust and resin mix afterwards. Blocks MUST be square however - chop saw or table saw essential, jig and circular saw possible but not ideal

run a batten to align against for the first row to stop them stepping out of line

dry fit 10-20 blocks first, mark the floor with a pencil round them, then spread adhesive to that area and stick down. Repeat as necessary. If you are trimming individual blocks, don't get them out of order between dry fitting and sticking down or they will not align and you will swear. A lot. :oops:

Not sure where you are, but I still have ~20m2 of the (unscraped) flooring I laid ready to go on e-bay (SWMBO wanted it in the hall but wanted a warm floor more so we are now back onto carpet). If you want it I am sure we could do a deal before it makes it to the bay - at least you will know what it should look like!

Steve
 
Steve,

Yes thanks for the advice.

I am concerned about the floor sander. Did you get waves and hollows in the height ? or was it level with a poor rough finish. My nightmare scenario is hollows that I can't do anything about. What grits did you use. I did consider starting with fine then progressing to course until I got used to the floor sander.

What resin did you use for the filling stage. How long did it take to dry / able to re-sand ?

I need about 9m2 to finish. I'm in Leicester. Thanks for the offer. I think it's best if you put yours on Ebay.

Chris
 
Hi Chris - the sander was used with a fine and a coarse belt, fine being not enough for the initial sand. However I got small 'waves' at the end of a push forward or back where the sander is momentarily stationary if that makes sense - you cannot feel these to walk on, but it is noticeable in direct sunlight. You cannot swing the sander but rather have to push it like a hoover so I found it impossible to avoid these pauses at the end of each 'stroke'. Even though I leveled each block through a thicknesser, laying resulted in small variations between blocks that needed sanding out so it is an essential step. I also found it impossible to push and then lift at the end of the run with any degree of accuracy.

The resin I used was Lecol 7500 - fantastic stuff. Smelly though. Takes about an hour to dry but I suspect that depends how much dust you mix with it. Couple of youtube video show the stuff in use and it is simple to apply.

Best of luck!

Steve
 
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