I chose a good hardwood engineered floor for a game room (approx 400 sqft)(on an wood subfloor) is it better to nail down or glue down, and what is the pro/cons of each. And which is easiest if I chose to do it myself. Thanks in advanced
The best thing to do is nail it on a wood subfloor. Put about a 30-pound tar paper between the flooring and the subfloor for moisture protection, sound dampening, and less fatigue when walking on it. Before you put the flooring down, walk around and check for squeaks in the subfloor. If you find any, you can either use long screws to secure the subfloor to the floor joists, or crawl under the house, pry up the subfloor a bit, and squirt some white glue into the crack that's causing the squeak. Then screw the floorboard back into place. You should only really glue a wood floor down if the subfloor is a slab. And, I wouldn't recommend doing it yourself unless you're really skilled with a compound mitre saw. Cuts will have to be precise and straight. You'll also need a special floor nailer and the nails have to bgo in precisely (in the tongue of the tonge and groove joint, at an angle so it doesn't interfere with the joint). Also, you should at least check with someone who has installed floors as to what direction the planks should go, where to start, how to get random lengths and colors (or grains), etc. Too many floors get really screwed up by people installing them who don't know what they're doing. .
to clarify what some people are calling engineered floors, real engineered floors are those that have a real hard wood top layer ( typically 1/8 or so ) laminated to a hardwood plywood lower layer, these are ALWAYS glued down and are not designed to be a floating floor, the laminate flooring are, the glue down engineered are designed for concrete slabs, though any competent installer will always use a epoxy base to act as both vapor barrier and membrane, also the wood needs to acclimatize into the room for at least 5 days before installation, most people ignore this step and thus have later flooring bucking problems due to the expansion of the floors, the best glue for concrete for any engineered woof floor is Bostiks Best urethane wood glue, not fun to work with , but the best by far, a real solid hardwood floor needs to be nailed down, keep in mind the harder the wood and your better of hand nailing it down ( with pre drilling , like cherry ) verse gun nailing to reduce the risk of tongue splits, however glue down floors can be used on plywood sub floors BUT the still need a plywood underlayment glued and screwed down first, as they were not designed with the deflection rates of plywood 16 inches on center, hence the need for a added plywood underlayment
Nailing Hardwood Flooring
