Anyone here experienced in wood flooring?

wifehatescar

wifehatescar

My L5-S1 is killing me!
I am buying a new house soon and part of it will have Bruce pre-finished wood floors. I also was thinking of installing some extra myself in some of the other rooms. I have a couple questions though:

THE DOG
We have a 35 lb dog that likes to run, will the floors get destroyed too quickly? Anyone here with a dog that size or bigger and pre-finished wood floors? We were considering laminate flooring but apparently it does not add value to the house???

THE INSTALL
Anyone ever install this stuff before? Easy/hard? What tools are needed to do a professional job (I already have an air compressor)? Is it possible to screw it up? All I know is you need clearence to the walls for expansion/contraction. I can do it myself for about $4/sqft, whereas paying someone else is at least $10.
 
It's unfortunate that laminate flooring still carries that taboo but as long as it does, you are right, it will not add value to the house. IMHO, a good laminate flooring is one of the best flooring materials made as far looks, cost and durability.

However, pre-finished hardwood flooring is pretty good too. The finish they put on it is generally speaking baked on and it much tougher than anything you can put on it outside of the factory.

I have installed about 10,000 sq of flooring ranging from traditional oak strips, prefinished hardwoods, laminates, and manufactured wood products - basically plywood with a 1/8 inch or so oak on top. I'm no professional but I have a bit of experience. It's not difficult if you are comfortable with a saw and have plenty of time.

By far the hardest to install is traditional oak strips - they are not straight. They bow and curl and buckle a lot. They also tend to develop cracksbetween strips due to expansion and contraction worse that the others. You'll need a special nailer which can rent at any tool rental place. I've seen the nailers that are compressor driven but I didn't use one. I've seen some prefinished Bruce hardwood flooring that is traditional strips - not sure if that's what you are getting or not. If so, beware that you are likely not going to have a smooth floor - the edges are beveled so you'll have lots of little dips where the strips mean. The beveling is to compensate for the dimensional instability of the real wood. A big advantage here is that it can be sanded down and refinished at some point in the future since you are dealing with 3/4 inchs of surface.

My preference is for the manufactured, prefinished wood flooring. It's dimensionally stable - very little in the way of bowing, cupping buckling etc. As a result, you more likely to find some that don't have beveled edges so you'll get a smooth floor. The trick to installing it is to work slowly on the first couple of rows and get them perfect. After that, everything lines up great and you'll make really good time. Since the surface is relatively thin, you may not be able to sand it down and refinish it in the future.

The prefinised stuff I have in in a bathroom - not exactly a high traffic area but it's as scratch free as the day it was installed. My finished in place wood flooring shows much more wear. I don't really have an opinion on how well the pre-finished stuff will hold up to your dog. :dunno

Let me know if you have other questions - I can give you the DIYer point of view.
 
I have had in my different houses real wood floor with a 2 1/2 oak strips, sanded down and finished.

Then my next house i had a 3 1/2 pre finished floor

This house i have pergo 5 or 6" looking boards.

My favorite floor was the prefinish one. I liked the look of the 3 1/2 boards better than the rest. The finish was great, and the rounded edges has a look to them that i didnt like at first, but it grew on me, and i actually perfer it for some reason now.

Supposedly the prefinish floors can have 7 or so layers of poly or whatever on them, but a traditional floor has 3 if your lucky.

With a traditional floor you will always get shrinking. The pre finish one i got had 0 shrinking.

I installed just a little of the floor as the guy who owned the flooring company was a friend of mine. It was fairly easy, although he had layed it out, and ripped the edges without me.

Tools needed as close as i remember is a chop saw,table saw, special nailer, speed quare?, tape, pencil, he might have had some scribe tool thing, i dunno.

Put a felt paper under the floor too.

If the floor is going to but up against a lino or tile floor you will have a height difference, and might want a threshold with beveled edge.

The flooring should slide up under the baseboards. If it doesnt i think a router can cut them, im not sure, i am a mason lol. Or make your cuts perfect :)
 
Oh ya the dog...

Put runners in the halways?, and keep the dogs nails trimmed. If you can hear click click click when the dog walks then his nails are too long.

But a 35 pound dog should be ok on the floor as long as you dont let him out and allow him to come in dirty then spaz all over your house.
 
i install wod floors for a living. bruce is not a bad product its got alluminum oxide in the paint. very hard finish. keep your dogs nails trimmed or let them run around otside on concrete this will keep them dull. stay away from laminate loks cheap, sounds hollow when you walk on them , horrible product.best way to install would be get a air compressor and air gun made for 3/4 oak, should be able to rent them from locaaly rental place. just remember to keep joints at least 6inches apart.
 
The dog will probably have more problems with the floor than vice-versa. We put that stuff in our first floor and it absolutely freaked out the dog. I don't think she realizes that she doesn't have traction control. Area rugs will definetly help make tha dog more sane, they also add a bit of useful contrast to the room.
 
Thanks for the input. My wife does think I am able to tackle it myself so we shall see if I do it or not :rolleyes: I'm assuming the worst that could happen, if you screw up, is a couple strips of wood become damaged.
The stuff we would use is the Bruce prefinished wood. There is no foam pad that goes under the wood floor, just "rose paper", right?
 
we have wood flooring in my dads house. he has a 210 lb Great Dane, 2 Pitbulls, and a Bichon Frise(20 lbs, looks similar to a huge cotton ball). with regular cleaning and protecting, the floors can hold up to dogs. there will be areas where the nails get into the surface, but that is pretty much impossible to prevent. the house is 15 yrs old and you only can see the scratches in certain areas. with your 35 lb dog, i doubt you will have a whole lot to worry about as long as you keep its nails trimmed.
 
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