Important
Golden Trim provides the following flooring FAQ and answers for your information. All manufacturer’s instructions precede any information in this section.
A floating floor is a type of installation that the wood flooring is not attached to the subfloor. The boards are affixed together by gluing the Tongue and Grove (T G) or by a locking system. They are installed over an underlayment and will expand and contract as a whole. A floating installation is the least expensive method to install and can be done over wood or concrete subfloor.
For a glue down installation, the boards are installed using a full spread moisture cured adhesive. You can install the flooring on a wood or concrete subfloor.
For a nail down installation you can use hardwood flooring fasteners, staples or cleats. Follow the manufactures installation guidelines for subfloor specifications and fastener schedules because each product may have slightly different instructions.
Installation Related
For concrete subfloors, you may use foam or cork underlayment on top of a vapour barrier, such as our UV rated CBSB 6mil poly. However, you may use just our Vapour Barrier (VB) foam as well. Proper vapour barrier prevents moisture from being absorbed by your wood flooring from the concrete subfloor.
For wood subfloors, you may use any foam or cork of your choice. However, we do not recommend the use of vapour barrier like our 6mil poly. Wood subfloor cannot breathe under a vapour barrier and therefore may create or escalate moisture problems. For a staple down application, a black asphalt Kraft paper or 15lb felt should be used. This is to minimize moisture movement between the subfloor and the wood flooring and, also, to help slide planks in place easily during installation and reduce the potential squeaking of the flooring.
A solid and flat subfloor provides the foundation for your wood flooring to perform properly. A flat surface reduces vertical movement of your flooring which minimizes the chance of you having a squeaky or crackly floor.
The maximum tolerance of unevenness we recommend is 3/16 per 10 feet for engineered wood, floating and glue down applications, and 1/4 per 10 feet for solid wood, a nail/staple application. You may grind or sand down the high points with #20 grit paper; for the low points, you may fill it with appropriate leveling compound.
Maintenance Care
Common Problems
For prefinished flooring with a UV cured urethane on the surface, we recommend using our Deccobond 18 Glue remover. It will remove the following:
- Residual Acrylic glue smudges
- Residual uncured urethane glues
- Mastic and tar on floors
- Contact cement residues
- Tacky glue and foam tapes
- Tapes and label residue
- Fabric and carpet spot remover
The following can restrict the movement of a floating floor:
- Inadequate expansion space: examples
- Not enough expansion space around the perimeter around the room or vertical obstructions.
- Debris filling up the expansion space. For an example a rock, glue, dirt, etc.
- Excessive spans due to no expansion transitional mouldings installed in doorways or connecting ways.
Items attached to the flooring: examples
- Bottom hardware of bi-fold closet doors screwed to flooring.
- Island cabinet in kitchen screwed to flooring.
- Excess glue can ooze out from moulding when placing moulding in place. When cured, the glue can bond to the flooring, pinning the flooring.
- Nails driven though the flooring into the subfloor.
- Baseboard/base shoe nails improperly placed sitting in expansion space.
- Improperly installed heating registers.
- Bookcases, cabinets, etc, screwed to the flooring.