Do You Lay Hardwood Floor With Joists

When you can t get access to the floor joists from below your only choice is to make the repairs from above.

Do you lay hardwood floor with joists.

If you can feel some deflection you have two options. The trick however is to silence the squeaks without damaging the finished floor. Installing hardwood floors with a few careful preparations elbow grease and a weekend you can have beautiful new floors. I am replacing our floating laminate flooring on the main floor with waterproof vinyl planks.

When learning how to install hardwood flooring there are a few tips to keep in mind. Consider laying your wood floors in a diagonal or herringbone pattern throughout your house. Make sure you ve got the right amount of flooring for your space. If raising the floor height is not a problem you can install a layer of 1 2 inch plywood over the existing 3 4 inch plywood.

No matter what you do you should eliminate squeaks on the subfloor first by screwing the floor down through the sub floor to the joists anywhere you can hear squeaking. The floor i am replacing was installed directly on top of the joists about 2 feet from the ground crawl space. Another thing to consider is floor joists. Laying a solid hardwood strip floor is easier and faster if you choose a prefinished product to avoid the extra work of sanding staining and finishing.

While personal preference is a factor the direction in which you run hardwood flooring boards is governed by visual and structural guidelines. Floor joists are used to support a floor over an open area like a basement crawl space etc. Apart from a few exceptions like sagging joists this is the preferred direction to lay wood floors because it provides the best result aesthetically. The most common way to lay install hardwood flooring is by aligning the planks parallel to the longest wall or run in the installation.

When possible begin installation from the straightest longest wall and install the flooring perpendicular to the floor joists. The correct direction for laying hardwood floors. Thank you for your time. You should also lay red rosin paper on the subfloor before you apply the wood to eliminate squeaks caused by the subfloor and hardwood rubbing together.

The other option assuming you have access to the open joists from below is to install 2x4 blocking between the joists 24 inches on center. The installers of the laminate floor orignally installed north south at our request but had to reinstall to lay in the direction to cross over the joists east west of house layout because the glueing in the laminate planks could not withstand the flexing not supported by joists. It s like a mini bridge that s only supported at each end.