A few questions for those of you who do flooring.

[oakiemac]

I just read the latest samill and woodlot magazine and they had a real good article on a guy who does flooring. One thing that I found intersting was that the guy used multiple species on a floor. He would put in a Hickory-oak-ash floor or cherry-maple floor or other combo's. I really like that idea and think it would make great looking flooring. A real benefit for the small producer is that he can pool together a bunch of different lumber to make flooring instead of having to supply just oak or maple.
The guy in the article didn't put end t&g on his floor or back reliefs. This brings me to the questions. Anyone else out there who doesn't do anything to the ends of their flooring or cut back reliefs? My partner who does all the flooring for me spends a lot of time cutting the ends and t&g the ends. If it is not needed then we could save time and money.
Another question is does anyone use soft maple for flooring? I'm thinking about red Maple since there is an aboundance around me and it is fairly cheap right now.

[etat]

A while back I put down a six inch pine tongue and groove floor.  Thinking about a year and a half ago give or take.  I was working with Sixteen foot D grade pine.  None of the ends were grooved or cut back.  I ran most of it on a diagonal in the rooms and finished it with multiple coats of Tung Oil and toped it off with a Tung Oil Polyurethane mixture i mixed up.  it is still all laying down nice and tight with no cracks.  I can't see that having the ends grooved or cut back where I seamed em together would have been necessary at all, except perhaps for making it harder to install.   

oh, I don't really do flooring this was just one i put down in my house.

[Norm]

I had pretty much the same experience as CK. Used 3 1/2" flooring without end matching and never had a problem. I think if I was going to do real wide widths like 6" or more than I'd use it. Mixed species floors might be too busy for my taste but would like to see some to judge that for sure.

[Kirk_Allen]

I put down over 300 square feet of flooring in the house we sold.  Random width T&G and I DID NOT T&G the ends.  I had no problems with the floor at all.  It was down three years before we sold the place and it looked the same the day we sold it as when I installed it.

I think the only concern I would have with multiple species is the differents in wood movement from species to species.  Of those he mentioned in the article I did not see a problem.

[FeltzE]

We've had good results with out end matching. I would consider biscut joined ends if I was using 6 inch or wider boards to keep an end from cupping up.

I use a relief groove on boards wider than 2.5 inches. It will reduce the tendency for the wood to cup and makes a good reference for the bottom during installation as our boards have a relief between boards below the T&G. An inadvertant assembly of a board bottom side up would leave a small space visible between boards.


Eric

[bottlefed89]

Feltze, can you explain this relief a little better, I can't picture what you're saying...

[etat]

the above shows, though not to exact scale, the profile for the  underside of the 1x6 pine floor boards that I used in my house.......

when putting it down it was absolutely necessary to use a floor nailer to get em together tight without any cracks...........

[FeltzE]

Sorry I've been out of town, ckate shows several relief cuts in the bottom. That helps to relieve stress and allows for installation on less than perfect surfaces.

Eric

[Brad_S.]

He may be refering to the relief between the tongue and groove. Basically, the underside of the tongue is cut deeper than the top side, so when the boards are drawn together, the top surface meets up flush but underneath the tongue, out of sight, the boards have a slight gap. This helps insure a good tight fit. I have exaggerated the set back more on this drawing so you can tell that the underside of the tongue is set back further than the top side.

[FeltzE]

Yep , that too.

Eric

[Don P]

I was reading up in the codebook tonight and came across what might be where end matching comes from. Who knows, sounds good at the moment anyway.

"R503.1.1 End Joints;
End joints in lumber used as subflooring shall occur over supports unless end matched lumber is used, in which case each piece shall bear on at least 2 joists. Subflooring may be omitted when joist spacing does not exceed 16 inches and a 1 inch nominal T&G wood strip flooring is applied perpendicular to the joists."

I've lived in, and worked on houses built that way, oak strip flooring nailed directly to the joists, no subfloor. So the way I'm reading it, the end match probably started as the poor man's way of avoiding the expense of subflooring and once we had the machinery it just became standard practice. No one that I know of in the last 2 generations has omitted the subfloor sheathing. We forgot where end matching came from and so it was just done more often than not and assumed that it needed to be done and was "best practice". I do remember commenting while removing one of those single layer floors that the strips sure were longer than we get nowadays. It wasn't necessarily that, they were going for the multiple member bearing, pieces shouldn't be shorter than 40". It may be a minimum of utility grade lumber or #4 common boards if used on 16's single layer.

[hillbilly]

               lets say if a person had somewhere around 800bdft of good red oak what all would be needed  to turn it in to flooring .
           Ive been around different types of flooring and helped lay a little and seen my dad lay some in different homes when I was a boy but I have never tried to make some of my own  : .
              One more question while I 'm thinking of it ,we have a concrete floor in part of our home that we currently live in and I was wondering if any one has evre put hard wood flooring down over concrete before and how?

HILLBILLY