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Study - oak flooring project

RogerS

RogerS

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And off to pastures new
While I am waiting either for SWMBO or anyone else to help get the worktop indoors, I need another project. This is it. One of the bedrooms aka my study - an L-shaped room, the long-term plan being to make another small en-suite in the alcove (the plumbing and waste are already there).

Background
It's an old oak-beamed house. The floor of the study is on top of these beams which, although this photo doesn't really show it, corkscrew their way as you traverse the room.



When we moved in, the ceiling was plasterboarded over and we got our builder to strip it out and recess it in between the oak joists. The downside is that the ceiling void is now non-existent - about 40mm. I laid chipboard over the joists many many years ago. Packed with little bits of loose wood here and there to fill in the gaps between oak joists and chipboard.



At the time I just went with the flow and the result is that as you go into the study from the door threshold, the floor goes down and then rises as you reach the opposite wall. And as you traverse left, the floor rises and rises and rises. The bit in the alcove is about 2" higher than the door threshold.

And, naturally, being an oak-beamed property there is nowhere to run the central heating pipes which you can see in the background. So these will need to be boxed in decently this time.

A few more photos to set the scene.





This is the door to the airing cupboard. It has been left unhung for the last fifteen years. :oops:





The reason why I'm taking up the chipboard is because, after all those years since it went down, I have no recollection of what wires or pipes might lie underneath. No such thing as digital cameras when I laid it.

Plan A was to rip up the chipboard completely and then lay cross-pieces across the width of the room on which the oak floorboards would go. However, the height I have to play with (due to the level of the door threshold) doesn't give them enough meat and I think the floor will be too springy. I may experiment though.

To be continued.
 
That's a beautiful door, Roger. Any chance of a photo of the other side of it?
 
Happy to oblige, Mike

(The auto-focus on my Samsung seems to have a mind of its own. Not that impressed with the camera TBH)

Took a few more photos today. This one gives a better view of the floor wonkiness. That horizontal ceiling main beam (going left to right) is the length of the study floor (give or take) and as you can see it goes up and down a fair bit.


I wanted to put a raised floor at the threshold to the L-shaped area as that would mean that the floor in the main area can be made level and flat and co-planar with the door threshold. But SWMBO is against that as she thinks it will truncate the room even more.

It is interesting to realise that over the years, they used whatever timbers they happened to have lying around or could cannibalise from other buildings. The result is no particular rhyme nor reason to mortices or peg holes.

This is a view of that same beam taken by me lying on the floor.



At other times they have even been known to use timbers from boats. Like this one.



For comparison the front half of the house (it's a double-gable) is 'country' Georgian. We changed the downstairs windows to make the proportions more in keeping with the Georgian style and replaced the hideously glazed front door with this panelled one. This is a very early photo.



This is a later one


Anyway, back t'study floor. Today has been spent generally getting ready, lifting a few more chipboards. The laser level arrived today and so tomorrow I can have a measure up. Ideally I would like to ditch the chipboard and lay cross-bearers across the width of the study (ie left to right in the photos) so that the oak floorboards will run from door to window. I can pack them up nicely on the existing oak ceiling beams with assorted plastic packers. (Note to self ..must get some cheap silicon for putting on the screw threads before they try and bite through 300 year old oak)
 
Andyp":2nfc08t1 said:
How do you know that is from a boat Roger? Which bit?
Click to expand...

It's the vertical bit. Not a very good photo but it is curved quite noticeably and I'm told that that's likely where it came from by an old boat-builder. He could be wrong, of course!
 
I'd like your help, chaps, please.

Got the laser level out and it's not great news TBH. Here is the floor plan.



Because the door threshold is low relative to the opposite wall, I can't put in a perfectly level floor from the door. It needs to slope gently upwards to reach the end height of +40mm relative to the door. At that stage, the floorboard nearest the wall is resting directly on an oak ceiling joist. A bit frustrating really as the floor slopes upwards from A to B and it is point B (ie the top of the oak ceiling joist) that dictates the +40mm uplift. If it was only, say, 10mm then I could trim a bit off the top of the ceiling joist but 40mm is way too much.

It also means, of course, that there is a slight slope to the floor from D to B...but it's an old house, I keep trying to remind myself of the fact...you expect sloping floors...and I guess I can live with this small slope.

It's the next bit that concerns me most. The floor carries on rising by another 90mm from point B to C and that is over a very short distance of 2.1m. Seems to me I have two choices:

1) Live with it sloping that much
2) Try and persuade SWMBO that a step at BD is a good idea. (see that flying pig?). Is she right? Would a step there make the room look smaller?

TIA
 
Afternoon Roger

Two options as I see it.

Either live with it and regard it as part of the character of the house or install a perfectly level floor using point C as the datum.

If you have enough headroom to do this you can form a 'well' at threshold level, into which the door will open, enclosed with a 130 mm step. This happens a lot in computer rooms where a false floor is laid to provide space for underfloor cabling.

You can explain to SWMBO that the when you step up into the room, it will appear bigger. :?

Well, you can try. Good luck.

Cheers

Dave
 
Personally I think a step at B-D will be less of a nuisance than a "well" in front of the door.

To what use will you put the "proposed" raised bit? Will there be enough head room?
 
Just about enough.



This area was intended to be converted into a small ensuite and so TBH I also think that a step makes more sense. Currently we have no short term plans...I'll probably keep my desk there.
 
Personally, given that you appear to be using the two parts of the room for 2 different purposes, I would put a step in at BD. However, I've seen much, much slopier floors than that, and one doesn't expect old cottages to be rectilinear, so if it makes life easier to just have a sloping floor.........well, there's another thread on keeping t'other half happy.
 
Andyp":19thd1yq said:
Personally I think a step at B-D will be less of a nuisance than a "well" in front of the door.
Click to expand...
:text-+1: Another vote for the BD step.

Tell SWMBO there was a democratic process and you are obliged to implement the 'winning' approach. Then if she doesn't like the result tell her not to shoot the messenger but must direct her dissatisfaction towards the faceless voters on WH2. I'm sure then everything will be fine. ;)

Terry.
 
RogerS":5vtebczv said:
Ever seen a circular saw cut through two central heating pipes? :oops: :oops:

I have. Off to get some plumbing bits. :cry:
Click to expand...
no but I have seen what happens when you nail though a pipe. One of my friends many years ago was nagged to fix the squeaky board on the landing, he just drove nails in where the board moved with no thought for what was in the floor. Twenty minutes later water started to drip from the living room ceiling. He came round and asked me if I could sort it out. After draining down the heating system and pulling up most of the landing to gain access to the pipe, which was fixed with a straight joint. The landing needed blocks added to the joist to fix the boards to, that did stop the squeaky board.
 
Well, that was a bit of a kerfuffle. Sheer stupidity on my part especially as I was taking up the chipboard to see where (if any) pipes and wires ran. I'd lifted up partly the board I was cutting through and checked underneath and all clear. Only I totally forgot about the overcut with a circular saw as you ended up sawing through the final part of the cut board, you start to cut into the next board. That's when I thought my circular saw was leaking. :oops: The mega-stupidity is that if I'd bothered to engage my brain and look to the fully exposed area to the left of the next board I would have seen the damn pipes.

So....Masterful response by me. Controlled panic. Bucket under the main waterfall. Downstairs, mains water off. Knew where a spanner was conveniently close to hand, run and turn on draincocks on the ch to try and get the system water away. Back in the house, run around turning off radiators to reduce the flow. Back downstairs, start squeegeing to stop the water running underneath the kickboards. Run back outside to get the water vacuum, start sucking up the water. Newspapers down. Squeegee..squeegee. Squeegee..squeegee.

Great fun. Drove down to Malvern to buy some inhibitor and naturally some medicinal bottles of beer. Two compression joints later. Refill. Rebleed the radiators which is when I realise that due to limited use many radiators are actually blocked or the plastic ch pipes are clogged up with haematite. Another job to go on the list.

Anyway, back to the plot. Removing the chipboard revealed the perfect skeleton of a rat (or mouse) - all the bones still attached to each other. Quite amazing really, little tiny scapula..



and I have no idea why Flickr has added that shading in. It's fine on my Mac.

Much more movement and those joists are going to pop out so I need to get the local blacksmith to make me up a few plates.



So boards all up and here is the floor, warts and all.


The fact that that far top LH corner is 40mm higher than my door threshold means that I have to angle the laser beam upwards to give me my line. But because the level has quite a good self-levelling range, and the slope is not that high, the angle I need is right on the cusp between locking (good) and self-levelling (bad). The floor joists also slope up from right to left. The thickness of the cross-bearers is going to be reasonable but going to be a right PITA as the tops of the joists are all over the place and each bearer is going to have to be hand-crafted to fit. The other thing I need to decide is if, because of the slope, I bother to fix these bearers with their tops co-planar with the slope or simply just let the floorboards have a point contact wherever they can. Any views ?

Also because the floorboards are end T&G I need to plan where to put the bearers so that they pick up where the end joints are going to be. I feel a SketchUp session coming on.

The other question that I still haven't quite got my head round in terms of ease-of-use or practicality is working back downwards from the laser line since it is 40mm above the height of the finished top level.
 
OK, I'm happy with this layout for the main floor area.


Not too much wastage. And so I know which board goes where, I've colour-coded this drawing. Isn't SketchUp great?

 
RogerS":2m8f5wtl said:
........Much more movement and those joists are going to pop out so I need to get the local blacksmith to make me up a few plates........
Click to expand...

I'd be surprised if your house is still moving. I reckon those joints probably opened up like that within a year or two of being built, unless you have had substantial rotting of sole plates or studs. If the sole plates/ studs are OK now, then I don't think those joists are going anywhere. It's always puzzled me why they didn't dovetail that joint. Occasionally you see them pegged.
 
You're right, Mike. Even though the house is slightly moving, if it moved enough for those joists to drop out, I think I would have more important things to worry about!
 
What does the team think the minimum spacing between 'joists' is that I can get away with?

Bearing in mind that they do not take any weight, as it were, as any load is directly transmitted to the oak joists. The only consideration is flexing of the 200mm wide T&G 20mm thick oak floorboards between joists.

600mm?
 
RogerS":it5j7wcv said:
What does the team think the minimum spacing between 'joists' is that I can get away with?

Bearing in mind that they do not take any weight, as it were, as any load is directly transmitted to the oak joists. The only consideration is flexing of the 200mm wide T&G 20mm thick oak floorboards between joists.

600mm?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you're asking Roger.

Are you putting some timbers across the existing joists, so that the oak, in effect, runs the "wrong" way?
 
The existing oak joists (the ones I talked about fixing the plates to)

(a) run in the same direction as that I want to new floorboards to go

(b) they are not level relative to each other (in any direction)

(c) are below the finished floor level

So I am laying down cross-bearers running across them. These are levelled relative to each other and give me the gradually increasing slope upwards as one goes into the room. I need some where the board ends join up but there will be some gaps between them. So if I don't put any extras in then I am thinking that the floorboards might sag as you walk on them.

It's possibly something that the Sagulator will tell me, maybe.
 
OK, I understand now.

400 centres would be my starting point, assuming the joists are good enough to bear the load of a floor. Once complete, the floor can be treated as a uniformly distributed load, particularly if (as you should), you have a half lap or T&G on each board.
 
I was just thinking maybe you could set out all your battens say 100mm above their final level and clear of the uneven stuff then scribe up 100mm and band saw them to fit the profile.

I had to span some uneven flooring at my daughters place and feathered a 300mm wide unevenness down to a less noticeable 1200 mm ramp using scribed battens instead of levelling compound.
 
I thought about your suggestion, Robert, but came to the conclusion that it added an extra element (getting the 100mm level marked up). Thinking a bit more about it I realised I was being too much of a perfectionist. The cross-bearers don't need to be scribed at all to the underlying oak joists. With the laser-level sloping up at the required angle, using my very large roofing square, I measured a line at right angles to the floorboard run and at 2800 mm away from the door datum. I then used a small block of wood that had a line marked on it 60mm up from the base (40mm to allow for the height the laser line was above floor level PLUS 20mm thickness of the floorboards). Then from that line upwards marked lines at 10mm intervals. I then plonked this block down on each of the oak joists in turn and noted where the laser line struck...rounding down to the nearest 10mm mark.

I marked up a story stick where each of the oak joists lay to speed up measuring each cross-bearer. Story sticks are a GOOD THING !



Marked up the cross-bearer for the 2800 position (ranged from 90mm to 35 mm) and cut it on the table saw. Sometimes switching ends part way through where needed to allow for the strange angle cuts I needed.

This 2800mm cross-bearer is one of the two critical ones to get right. So offered it up and packed it out as appropriate at each joist using these





On some joists I had to unscrew and add in 1mm shims as the cross-bearer sometimes compressed down below the laser line as it was impact screw-driven home. I had thought I'd need to pilot drill in the oak joists and add silicon but the impact driver simply screwed its way home. We discovered (or rather SWMBO discovered) that the impacts managed to release copious amounts of sand that had last seen the daylight 20+ years ago when we had the oak beams sand-blasted. Trouble was the room underneath is the kitchen. With supper. :oops:

Then repeated the process for another critical cross-bearer at 2200mm. Once these two cross-bearers were in position I did a final check with the laser level and then proceeded to put in the other key cross-bearers to support where the floorboards would be end-joined. I know that they have T&G ends but my philosophy is Belt'n'Braces. Having got all the key ones in, then proceeded to fill in additional ones to support the floorboards.

Finally the proof of the pudding was to slide a long level along the cross-bearer nearest the window and see if it kissed the top of that oak joist (position B - the one dictating my 40mm uplift). It did and so dead chuffed.

My knees ache though, scampering about those joists and kneeling on them without putting my foot through the ceiling. Sometimes I could lay down an old piece of chipboard but not always.

Very pleased with the result. Sticking a level across any four cross-bearers shows very little variance in floor level ...1mm if that.

We're good to go

 
I have a datum line into the room drawn from the existing oak floorboards out on the landing. I want to align the boards between study and landing as one goes through the door. It won't be 100% after a while because the landing boards are different widths whereas all the boards for the study are the same width - 200mm.

(I prefer varying width boards but when I discussed this with the supplier they warned me that the T&G between different widths would be different..even though their machines were supposed to have been set-up identically. They sent me some samples and they were right. Bit surprising really.)

Carefully marking out to the wall where I am starting showed that Sod's Law is alive and kicking. There is only the tiniest of gaps - 40mm - and although I could simply shift everything over by that amount, it would mean that the datum lines didn't match.



In my original SketchUp drawing I knew that I needed a small piece down that wall and planned to take it out of a 2800mm length. However, with the skewness of the room, it was only once I started to measure out that the actual size became apparent. So, off to the workshop to glue a small extension where needed on the first boards.

The wall kicks in towards one end of the room and so I needed to scribe in part of the first board but using the Fein it was far easier simply to lay it on top of the floorboard and cut into the beam (which was mostly woodworm and crumbled). I can't even begin to think how I worked without the Fein. Just makes some jobs so, so much easier.


All good apart from in my haste last night to start on laying the floorboards, I cut off one of them too short. Too fixated on ending up on cross-bearers but in this corner I needed it to cut in and sneak round the hot water pipe :cry:



So that piece is currently in the workshop having the end domino'd back on. I also decided, given the thinness of the infill piece needed, that it made far more sense to glue and extra 40mm bit of spare floorboard I had left over from another job onto the two floorboards that you can see in the photo. A lot safer to mark out, scribe and cut then trying to do the same on a thin bit of stock. Which will move after scribing and then I'll have the hassle of trying to fit a bendy bit into the hole.
 
So first two glued up boards trimmed and fitted. Next couple pretty straightforward but then we come to the tricky bit - the door threshold. Two problems to work out.

First, the wall is at an angle to the lay of the floorboards. The landing floorboards were laid in 2004 when I was very new to this woodworking malarkey so the cut line of boards not as good as I'd have liked. It's not that bad but I think I can tweak it.

Second, not sure how it happened but the study floorboards arrive at the threshold 4mm higher than the landing floorboards. There is enough flex left for them to be screwed down and then plugged but I'd rather not do that. So I planned to make an oak threshold strip running across the door opening and then chamfer it slightly to allow for the 4mm offset.

As an aside something also went amiss with the study floorboard alignment and the centre line doesn't meet up with the landing boards which is a pain. I triple checked everything. Possibly down to slight variations in the floorboards or more likely down to me - but there it is.

So loose laid the floorboards in the study wide enough to cover the doorway and cut to fit the door jambs.



This door jamb is slightly rounded as you can see but as the board has to slide in rather than drop down not a lot I can do about it. I guess I could slightly cut into the door jamb but TBH more trouble than its worth.



and the other side





I cut the threshold strip to fit the doorway, laid it down onto the study floorboards, knifed the line to fit the threshold strip and then decided how best to cut the boards. Jigsaw, SCMS (dismount it and bring it into the study or carry the boards to the workshop one by one) or Festool TS55 with guide rail. Last one is the best option as I can clamp all the boards together and make one nice simple straight clean cut.

Then decide how to tweak the landing floorboards. Best way I thought was a bearing guided trimming router bit. I've got a small Ferm router which would let me get the furthest towards each jamb and then I could finish off with a chisel. Problem was how to fix the reference edge for the bearing to run against. Obviously can't screw down into the floorboards. Double-side tape? Possibly mess up the old finish in the landing. Piece of MDF and kneel on it? Sounds like a plan. Only. Only. Not big enough and as I shifted my weight ever so slightly, this happened. Bugger it.



So Door Threshold Plan B.

Shift things slightly, use that 4mm offset as a lip to cover the cock-up and round the edge over. And that's what I did. Domino'd into the existing landing floorboards and also into the study ones and the threshold strip. Lots of fiddling about with spacers to support everything properly. Et voila, Hastings.



In passing, I should mention that I'd hired a couple of floorboard cramps...superb bits of kit, never used them before - always used to whack the boards together (only to find the other end would spring out). These cramps make it so so easy and controlled.

Mmm...what else? Remembered to route the house Ethernet cables under the floorboards. Put some pipe insulation on the ch pipes (although they are rarely on in that part of the house). The new toy ( Festool CXS) is a joy to use. Beats my old crappy Makita's hands-down.

So about a third done.


I've gone as far as I can before I need to muck about with the small L=shaped piece and also work out 'The Miracle' how to pick up support for the bearers as they meet the radiator wall and also zero room for any sensible support around point 'B'. Also decided to sand and wax the floor that's laid to date as I need to move (again) my desk et al. No point in moving it again and again.
 
All looks very easy and straight forward. Well done.

Will the landing and study boards end up the same colour when waxed?
 
No, they won't. The landing floorboards ended up that hideous orange tint as at the time I knew no better and used Ronseal...dreadful stuff that put an orange tint. I am tempted to use Aquacoat SP instead of wax..not sure yet. It's very quick to put on and less energy intensive then wax/polishing but more time consuming as you need extra coats. I want to crack on so will probably wax them.
 
Just popped up from the workshop having used Ronseal on some oak boards ready for shelving in the new office.

Their clear satin finish is my regular choice for cooking grade varnish jobs and not noticed any orange tinting.

My workshop floor - been down about 7-8 years I guess - used water based toolsatan varnish which went down well, dried quickly - two coats in a day and has been very good. Floor is a light coloured eastern ply and hasn't knowingly discoloured over time after the obvious change from bare to varnished.

Bob
 
Bear in mind, Bob, that the Ronseal I used then (polyurethane IIRC...yeah, I know..I know now) is probably a different formulation to that available now. I've got a couple of test pieces for SWMBO to make a decision. For my money, Briwax looks the DB's.
 
Oh woe...oh woe. Oh woe is me.

Now taken up the remaining boards to reveal just how much of a headache I have given myself by SWMBO not wanting to have a step up. I've tried taking photos but they don;t really show the problem which is that somehow the floor has to corkscrew - for want of a better word. I haven't even started to use the laser level but I can see with my eye it is a real PITA.


Not helped by me not doing a very good job with this 28mm central heating pipe.



Originally the chipboard was cut-out to accommodate but if I want to keep the pipe as is then it means the boxing in of the pipes is going to be much deeper than I want. I might be able to slacken it off just a little and twist it downwards...a bit of slack perhaps but not much. I'm thinking draining down the system (yet again) incurring another £30 in inhibitor) might be needed and stick a couple of right-angled compression fittings and hang the extra resistance. Of course, I don't have any more 28mm pipe and I don't really want to buy x metres when all I need is a few cm.

I've already got metres of Tri-oso multifoil to lay over those pipes to minimise drying out of the floorboards once laid. So that's OK. Also now I've got the old boards up I can fit my 'ferrets' to the interference causing LEDs down in the kitchen.
 
9fingers":363aj6t8 said:
Roger,

I have some 28mm copper that I can spare. It came out when I removed my gravity fed DHW system.

Drop me a PM if you would like some.

Bob
Click to expand...


Ooh, thanks for that Bob. Will let you know.
 
Do you have one of those laser levels that spins around the room? If you do you could set the camera on a long exposure which might just provide the details required in a photo. Just curious.
 
My plan is to push into the alcove as far as possible levelling by removing stuff from the beams. At least as far as is reasonably possible. Then take a view.
 
I am rapidly losing the will to live here. We've now reached the point where the floorboards will lie directly on the oak joists. Well, at least for 20mm!

This is what I have to lose.


The rest of the joist requires a tapered support wedge but, as we all know, it's not as simple as that as each oak joist bends, twists, erupts, cups and so the simplest wedge about 1m long requires many trips to the workshop to cut/adjust. And 'cos I'm wearing a pair of indoor trainers up in the study, they have to come off before putting on outdoor shoes and vice versa. Each time. Every time.

I have given up the number of times the chisels needed regrinding for although I ground away all the nails I could see, there were still several hiding away just below the surface or covered in dirt thus invisible. I have an old set of Stanley chisels that I usually use for this type of work but given the hardness of these very old oak joists, they wouldn't keep an edge for more than five minutes. So it's the next best set up (Irwins) that are getting a hammering.





I used this in my hand grinder but had to be ever so careful of the nails.


It's magic at fast removal of wood. Even really old oak.

The only way I can support the floorboards is to use 18mm ply which itself is suitably supported but requiring individually crafted supports. Even then part of it will have to be pocket screwed.
Working out the height needed (x100 :evil: )




Yet another tapered support. Boring!



And after two days this is what I managed to achieve (OK I did have other things to do)



And now we come to where I am flummoxed. The ply in the photo above is perfectly flat according to my level. This is the next support for the next piece.



Marked up by running a knife across from the ply in the photo above. Cut on the table saw. The edge is straight. Yet when I screw it to the beam the last 40cm are out of whack by about 5-8mm with the fitted ply and I can't work out why. If I trim it where it is supposed to be to bring it level with the ply then I am going to have a noticeable hump over which the floorboards won't sit very well.


Scratching head time.
 
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