How I fit ENGINEERED OAK wood flooring

Today I’m fitting our engineered oak flooring using the floating floor method. Back to our 1920’s renovation and I’ll also explain whether this is a DIY project.

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Wood Floor:
0:00 - Introduction
1:50 - Preparation
6:40 - Underlay
7:45 - Stuff you’ll need
9:00 - Starting to fit the floor
11:45 - Glue hack
12:18 - Straight starting point
16:00 - Cutting under architraves
19:10 - Timelapse floor fitting
23:20 - All finished and final tips

#WoodFloor #Flooring #Oak

[AndrewCoakley]

If only you'd made this a few months ago, before I started fitting my engineered wooden floor! Despite watching so many videos about this task, not one of them got into the nitty gritty of checking the room squareness properly before starting. You've devoted so much time to it (the right amount of time!), and it's a crucial consideration - particularly here in the UK where squareness can sometimes be nothing but a dream. I've fitted my floor to the point where I realised that the whole thing is out of true because the wall I started on isn't parallel to the others. So that's where it's stopped - with a lounge floor that's in but skew, and unfinished. I'm building up the will to go back and sort it out as best I can, and it was genuinely hard for me to click the play button on this video as I knew you'd do it properly, and I'd have to eat some crow. Thanks for putting out the best video I've seen on this topic - I'm sure it'll help others avoid this painful lesson!

PS: another issue I found after the fact is the subfloor not being flat. It has dips and bows all over the place which are not obvious with carpet and underlay on top, but very obvious when walking on the floorboards spanning over these dips. Maybe this'll help someone that's read this far down in the comments. Needless to say the floor is going to have to be lifted so that I can shim these areas and correct the squareness...

[spacecraftbuildingservices]

Hi. Have just layed about 23m2 in a house very similar to yours. I posted some time ago to say how helpful your vid was and I can now say absolutely that it was. The importance of getting the line bang on that long run cannot be overstated and continually checking for adjustment if needed. My flooring was mixed in the sense that some of the grooves were rough. I developed a habit of clearing each groove with a screwdriver blade before gluing and it significantly reduced the need for excessive hammering. Thanks again. Jim

[theofarmmanager]

We are just completing a large barn conversion. Had many, many trades and suppliers in during that time and they fall very distinctly into 2 groups - ones who had little knowledge, lots of BS and just wanted full pay for a lousy job; then there were those worth their weight in gold because they cared. Sometimes they were cheaper; sometimes more expensive but within a day I learnt to tell which camp the tradesman came from. I don’t know much about building, plumbing, electrics - really just as much as most people who have done a lot of DIY; I’m therefore susceptible to hearing what turns out to be crap. Right from the steel frame manufacturer at the beginning to some plumbers doing 2nd fix at the end, we have had people in who I’d like to throttle. A little surprising to me, everyone whose name I got from Checkatrade, as opposed to recommendation from another tradesman, has tuned out to be very good.

We had about 90square metres of herringbone click system engineered oak. Don’t. It took twice to fit as long as glued herringbone; no benefit in the click system and the professional layers seem to hate it. Shop around; we bought our oak from one firm who thought we were silly enough to think we would add on the gold underlay as an afterthought. Just a little shopping around and we saved hundreds.

I could wrote a book on renewable energy suppliers. That sector seems to be attracting all the cowboys; all the chances; all the con men around. Our first supplier went bust (seems a regular occurrence on this sector); finding a reputable one is a real headache. There are those who demand high deposits - but beware; giving a company a deposit is lending them money; would you lend money without checking somebody out? I’m lucky in that I can read company accounts but heaven help those who can’t.

[Czechbound]

That was great ! Very "real world". I think for the risk involved for an amateur ( in my case ) installation vs 2 1/2 grand labour spend, I'd certainly give it a go. If I ended up scrapping a couple of packs, I'd still be able to convert a lot of that saving in labour into tools that could then be used in other jobs. It's laying a floor after all. Not sending a rocket to the moon. Measure twice, cut once, and have it all planned as you showed us at the beginning of the video is really great advice !

[normanboyes]

Well Andy, I was absolutely floored to see you doing this but was not board at all.😉

You did a cracking job as usual, you are right, it is murder on the knees and the back and as you get older once you get down on the floor you sort of think is there anything else I need to do down here before I get up.

I read some of the comments with respect to floating floors and the weight of the fitted kitchen likely causing problems. I agree with you the way you have done it - there should not be a problem. The only risk is water leaks and you could take a sort of preventative measure using a water leak device - Honeywell do them and Sure Stop do one that will also shut off the water supply.

😀👍

[tomdarling-fernley]

Phew, good for you on being way more philosophical about that hearth install than I'd have been! I'd have been raging.

[stuartlockwood]

Hi Andy, you did a great job mate, and Mrs Mac wiping off the glue must have Been a big help, I did vertually the same job for one of my daughters a few years ago, large through lounge and hallway, same type of flooring, it took 3 days, at the end of each day we put flooring ratchet straps across the unfinished floor to keep it all tight, worked a treat. Same method of fitting as you did, fully floating, and it's never moved, phew!, lol. My daughter selected all the boards from the packs to achieve a nice spread of tones, that speeded the job up no end. Thanks for another interesting video mate, best wishe's to you and your's, Stuart UK.

[alexc]

I cannot believe how far the renovation has come. I remember when I first saw it, I couldn't believe that one man and his wife would be able to fix it up in a reasonable amount of time. Incredibly impressive.

[ElevatedJamTracks]

Just ordered a tape measure - Wore mine out recently on a landscaping/porcelain patio project!
Love the content mate, been a fan for a while. You have a habit of uploading a video not long after I've done a similar project and showing me how much better I could have done it 😂

[eurogeordie]

Just laid same flooring in my conservatory, last March. Never having done it before, i watched loads of youtube videos on laying this stuff and not one of them mentioned using glue on the tongues, wish they had. I live near Folkestone in Kent, but when i was a kid i used to play in that stream at the bottom of your garden, when i wasn`t nicking golf balls from the golf course. Ian

[roberthardy]

Great job Andy, don’t you just love how multitools make this sort of job easier.

[jacopo.scarpellini]

Looking forward to the skirting board fitting; I have done a similar installation on a floating floor across 3 bedrooms and a hallway with no thresholds; my engineered wood floor is a click type, but I've glued the joints with PVA to minimise creaks; it was all sound and solid until I fitted the skirting boards, then it started to be sensitive to temperature changes, i.e. when you step close to the skirting board, it creaks as if you're breaking the friction in between the floor and the skirting

[keithgarrett]

I love that you have a metric/metric tape measure. I was so happy when I got mine!

[raydriver]

I took half my workshop, including a DeWalt flip saw, to France in 2017 to lay my son’s laminate floor and left a box with my drill and screw driver behind. I now have two of each! As always, Andy, great video and thank you for sharing 🌞

[whizwest]

Great video, I’m soon to take on a Bungalow with similar engineered wood. I’m just a diy-er but after your excellent guide, I feel I can take it on. Thank you.

[Gerry]

You and Mrs Mac are both doing a marvelous job all round the house. 👍👍

[lukepowell]

You've come through for me again! Tax returns, to drainage and now flooring, you're voice is that of reassurance!

[tomsimpson]

Top work as usual Andy. Bottom of stairs looks brilliant👍🏻😉🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[rubbersteve]

Excellent advice and finish oak flooring. We'll done.

[ottochristensen]

It's a great job, with good and understandable instructions.