Refurbishing and relaying pine floorboards onto joists
Anonymous user 09/03/2024 - 2.33 PM
Hello,
We are currently refurbishing a 1930s house that we bought recently and we have decided to refresh the original pine floorboards as the next step.
We had a professional quote for the job of replacement damaged boards, fastening loose joists and then doing all of the sanding and sealing, but we wanted to try a smaller room ourselves first before deciding on taking the plunge professionally.
I have a couple of questions that I haven't been able to find answers to from my searching, so hopefully somewhere here may be able to shed some light:
1. When we relay the boards after doing any joist repairs, can we lay them back down with smaller gaps? Some of our current gaps are huge (up to 1cm in places) and even when we fill them with pine slivers it may look strange. The professional said we may not be able to do this as the boards would have aged in their current joist positions, so moving them to different positions could cause them to jut out.
2. For the floorboards that have to get lifted up, do we re-nail them in the existing holes with new brad nails or make new holes, filling the old ones?
3. For tightening a wobbly joist, can I just fasten it to the brickwork using screws/rawplugs or is there a special fitting for this?
4. We were told by the professional that underfloor wool insulation wouldn't help with sound insulation as much as we hoped, and that filling the gaps with pine would be the best way to do this and stop draughts.
Thank you very much,
Nico
Are you a tradesperson and able to answer this question?
The best approach to this is to remove all of the boards, de-nail the boards and the joists. Secure any loose joists. if the originals are bedded on mortar then it would be best to renew the bed. The alternative would be to use joist hangers. Ensure you purchase the correct size for the joist. If you wish to insulate the floor this is best done by securing galvanised wire mesh to the underside of the joists. Then lay the insulation between the joists which will obviously be supported by the mesh. (Note this applies to the ground floor only) The insulation will help to reduce the transfer of noise. Noise moves best through air, reduce the airflow and you reduce the noise.
You can now relay the original boards. When laying the boards leave a 10mm gap between the outside walls and the boards. Fix the first run of boards in place. The thickest part of the board goes to the top surface and the groove is orientated to the wall. You then lay a further four runs of boards and using flooring clamps apply pressure before fixing. If you cannot hire flooring clamps use folding wedges. Because the boards have shrunk you may have up to 50mm to fill at the opposite side of the room. You would need to purchase boards for this. The last board is sprung in, cut it 2mm wider than the gap it is intended to fill. raise the previous two boards which have not been fixed, fit the last board to these and form a hill with the last three boards walking across these boards will spring them in leaving no gaps. Finally fix the boards in place. Use the old nail holes in the boards where you can but if they are too big you will need to fix in other places. The other way is to secret nail along the lengths at an angle through the tongue. I hope this helps.
Your professional seems to know what he's talking about, the question about a wobbly joist no you can't just screw it in your joists need to be really secure should be set into the brickwork for stability. Truthfully don't attempt any of these works yourself by the sound of things you have very little experience with this kind of project, get in a professional to do it once doing anything yourself may be a false economy, you may need to pay again to put it right which can be more expensive than doing it in the first place.
