A Guide to Installing Hardwood Flooring

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The fact is that although hardwood floors are the benchmark of expensive homes, the materials are usually less costly than good carpet.
The fact is that although hardwood floors are the benchmark of expensive homes, the materials are usually less costly than good carpet.
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Diagram 3: Moisture test.
Diagram 3: Moisture test.
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Diagram 4: Preparing the subfloor.
Diagram 4: Preparing the subfloor.
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Diagram 1: End-matched strip flooring.
Diagram 1: End-matched strip flooring.
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Diagram 2: A sound subfloor.
Diagram 2: A sound subfloor.
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Diagram 6: Establishing a base line.
Diagram 6: Establishing a base line.
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Diagram 7: Using a power nailer and a lever.
Diagram 7: Using a power nailer and a lever.
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Diagram 5: Laying a vapor barrier over screeds.
Diagram 5: Laying a vapor barrier over screeds.
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Diagram 8: Nailing flooring to screeds.
Diagram 8: Nailing flooring to screeds.
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Diagram 12: Applying a sealer.
Diagram 12: Applying a sealer.
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Diagram 10: A block flooring pattern.
Diagram 10: A block flooring pattern.
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Diagram 9: Wedging the final courses.
Diagram 9: Wedging the final courses.
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Diagram 11: Using a drum sander.
Diagram 11: Using a drum sander.

Installing hardwood flooring is the only rewarding job where you start at the bottom and stay there. (See the flooring illustrations in the image gallery.)

Installing Hardwood Flooring

IMAGINE WAKING UP ONE morning to be greeted by the texture of moist clay or cold, hard stone beneath your feet. If this doesn’t sound appealing to you, neither did it to our enterprising forebears, who found their solution in wood. Abundant and easily worked, blade-hewn timbers made a strong, natural covering for the structure underfoot, and with time evolved into the smooth, square-planed surfaces we’ve become accustomed to seeing in houses of every stripe.

The fact is that although hardwood floors are the benchmark of expensive homes, the materials are usually less costly than good carpet–certainly if they’re already in place and need only to be renewed. And though it could be argued that modern carpeting or resilient flooring is easier to care for (that’s why such products have become so popular in the last few decades), the advent of nail-tough urethane finishes and strict attention to quality control among wood-floor manufacturers have all but pulled the rug from under such once-sound logic.

A Shoe’s-Eye View

  • Published on Nov 1, 1988
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