- My name's Aaron Massey, and welcome back
to another episode of Home School'd.
For today's project, I'm gonna show you
how to install a hardwood floor.
As part of the remodel for my son's bedroom,
we're installing new hardwood floors.
In this case, we settled on
a dark distressed bamboo hardwood.
A common complaint with bamboo hardwood floors
is that while they're really resilient
to dings and scratches once they're installed,
the tongues on them are really brittle,
so installing them typically requires gluing them down
rather than nailing them down,
which can be a little bit messy
and challenging.
Fortunately the team at Powernail
sent me their new hardwood floor nail gun to test out
and they claim it's specifically designed
to install brittle tongue flooring.
This nailer is much smaller
than a traditional hardwood floor nailer
and doesn't require a mallet to hit the nail gun
and shoot the nails.
I rate these projects by how many F-bombs
you're likely to drop while tackling the project.
This one can be a little (mechanical sound) difficult
depending on the room or area you're working in
and requires a few specific tools.
Before you get started installing
any hardwood or laminate flooring,
you first wanna measure the room
to determine the square footage of the room
and then checking that
with the flooring you're gonna install,
to see what the square footage coverage is per piece
or per box.
I recommend you purchase 10 to 15% more than you need,
to account for cuts, waste and any damaged flooring
that comes in the box.
Also keep in mind the flooring
in the surrounding rooms that connect to it.
You always wanna try and choose a floor
that is roughly the same thickness
as whatever is around it,
so you don't have a bunch of different height floors
to try and dress up later.
In this case, I could get away with a hardwood
that was 9/16 thick, to keep it even height
with the hallway.
You don't wanna choose a floor that's too thick or too thin
that you have to try and come up with a fix for later.
Once you've purchased your flooring,
bring it into the house or area it's gonna be installed
and let it acclimate to the climate in the room
for a few days.
The humidity of your home can affect the flooring,
so you never want to install it
the same day that you purchase it.
Next you need to prepare the subfloor
that the hardwood is being installed over.
In this case, I removed some old carpet
and found old 2x4 tongue in groove subfloor underneath.
Check the floor to make sure it's nice and level
and do any necessary work to level the subfloor
if you have to.
I'm not gonna go into a huge amount of detail
on the various ways to do that in this video,
so we'll assume the area you're installing
is fairly close to level.
In this case, the subfloor was is pretty good shape.
Go around the room and knock down any old nailheads
or remove any staples or things sticking up from the floor
and then thoroughly clean the area with a Shop-Vac.
You also want to remove any existing baseboard moldings
in the room.
In this case, the baseboards
are actually old built in baseboards
that are plastered in with the walls.
I don't wanna remove them,
because I would risk damaging the walls,
so I'll just custom make some new baseboards later,
to go over them.
Next you want to determine the layout
of the flooring in the space.
I like to start by finding the longest straight run
in the room and working my way off that point,
making sure I won't have any sliver cuts
or funky shaped places to do with later on.
This room is pretty square,
so it's not that big of an issue.
Keep in mind that many old homes have walls
that are out of square,
so adjust your measurements accordingly.
Measure the finished width of your boards
and then adjust where your pieces will line up,
so you don't have any really thin sliver cuts
to deal with at the end.
Make sure to plan to stagger each joint
by at least six inches and avoid H joints
where two rows line up that aren't at least two rows apart.
Once you have your layout roughly figured out,
next install a moisture barrier on the floor.
In this case, I'm using red resin paper,
which is a cheap product that's been around forever,
but they also make a ton of other products for this.
Lay it out in the room and overlap it
by four to six inches with every row.
You can staple this down and tape the seams if you want to.
Now you're finally ready to start
actually laying your flooring.
I like to use a small piece of the actual flooring
as a tap block, to make sure the pieces are firmly seated
in their grooves, before shooting them in place.
They sell kits you can buy that contain tap blocks and bars,
but I find using a chunk of the actual floor
doesn't slip as much and there's less chance
of damaging the edges of the flooring.
Make sure you leave an expansion gap
around the edges of the flooring at each wall.
I recommend at least a half an inch,
but it depends on what you're gonna be using
as your baseboards to cover that gap.
This will allow the flooring to expand and contract
with changes in the season and humidity.
Follow any markings you laid on the floor
during the layout phase,
to make sure you're laying the flooring correctly.
Once you have the first few rows installed,
you can use the flooring nailer from here on out.
Follow the manufacturer's guidelines
for spacing our your nails.
In this case, this flooring is recommended
to be fastened every four to six inches.
Coloration on the floor can vary from box to box,
so as you work your way through the room,
make sure you're taking pieces from various boxes as you go.
You never wanna do half your room
and then find out that the next box
is a slightly different shade.
When you get to door jambs, use a piece of flooring
to act as a depth gauge to cut off the bottom of the casings
at the height of the new flooring
and then slide the new flooring underneath.
Don't try to cut the flooring around the casing,
because it looks terrible.
Work your way through the entire room
and when you to the final row,
face nail it in place as close to the wall as you can.
You can patch any nail holes with wood putty
or you can try to cover them
with the baseboard or shoe molding that you choose.
Lastly, install any transition or threshold pieces
to blend the floors together.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm custom making some baseboards
to go over the existing in this room,
but now you can install whatever baseboard
or shoe molding you choose
and then you are finished with this project.
That's it for this video.
I hope it was helpful for you
in tackling your own hardwood floor install.
It can be a little tricky,
but with a little knowledge,
I'm confident you can do it on your own
and get great results like I did.
I wanna take Powernail again
for sending over the nail gun used in this video.
It worked perfectly for this flooring
and just super easy to use and I didn't have any problems
with the tongues breaking
or being damaged during the installation.
And if you guys are gonna be installing a hardwood floor,
I highly suggest you check out Powernail's website
for a full list of their products.
If you did like this video, please hit that like button
and leave me a comment down below and let me know.
Also you can find more information
about installing a hardwood floor,
along with many other home improvement projects
on my website at mrfixitdiy.com.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
I'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)