Floorboards are one of the most important parts of any renovation project and the most confusing one. As there is a range of flooring and underlayment types available in the market, you may have a lot of unanswered questions about floorboards and underlayment.
To make the life a bit easier for you, we are here to cater you with the answers for the most frequently asked questions about the flashboard underlayment and how to get the best from the topics around underlayment.
What do you put under wooden flooring?
It doesn’t matter whether you want to install a wooden floor an uneven concrete sub-flooring or you have a glassy flat surface, you cannot overlook laying a suitable sub-flooring under the hardwood flooring. underlayment not only protect the flooring from moisture damage and wrapping but also offer a degree of thermal insulation. A good sub-flooring also makes the flooring soundproof preventing each step you take from echoing in the house.
Felt is the most popular underlayment for hardwood. It offers an acceptable level of sound and moisture insulation. Dyers find that it’s affordable, easy to cut and install and often does not require gluing. This makes felt the best candidate for DIY projects and for those need to combine affordability and reliability.
On the other side, Felt lacks premium features of the more expensive underlayment. It’s thin and won’t give you excellent soundproofing or thermal insulation. You cannot count on the cushioning feature too. So, if you’re looking for an underlayment with perfect features, you’d better go for premium sub-flooring materials such as rubber.
Rubber is a great moisture barrier and does a very good job reducing unwanted sounds. It also compensates for minor imperfections in the sub-flooring. Like felt, rubber is DIY-friendly and easy to install, and unlike some cheaper doesn’t need gluing. So why it’s not as popular as felt? Mostly due to cost. Rubber is as twice as expensive as felt. This means this amazing underlayment remains as an option for luxury renovation projects.
Cork underlayment is not as popular as felt but peerless sound-proofing characteristics. It’s usually used to remove background sounds from the recording in music studios.
Cork is also flexible and will fit gaps between the underlayment and flooring. It also helps to prevent heat and water from reaching your precious hardwood flooring. Cork is not moisture-proof but you can buy cork underlayment with a moisture barrier.
And one last benefit for those suffering from allergies, Cork is anti-allergy and anti-fungal.
What should I use to fill gaps between floorboards?
You don’t want to leave the window when the heater in on, the same is true about wood floorings. As the temperature falls and rises, gaps appear in the flooring. It may take years for gaps to show up in your flooring, but you should treat draughts sooner rather than later.
How to choose to fix gaps depends on the gaps, the age of flooring and number of gaps. If your flooring is too old or has big gaps your may need to replace the entire flooring rather than just filling the gaps.
Ordinary you can use wood fillers, putty or piece of ropes and then stain to match the flooring. To fix narrow gaps, it’s better to apply a small amount of filler such as putty or filler powder to the gap. If done properly, it will hide gaps and prevents them from getting bigger.
Wider gaps require a little more time and skill, but the repair is more permanent and the result looks better. For that, you need wood shims, narrow strips or rope. In any of these options, you need to be sure that the flooring is secured and weather is stable.
Can you put floorboards over floorboards?
The short answer is Yes, you can install new flooring on top of the old one, but in most of the case, it’s not recommended. The reason is that old hard floorboards are rarely flat, which means it cannot serve as a stable sub-flooring for your new flooring.
Besides, any additional height can break the appearance of your room and may cause problems with corners and doesn’t allow the doors to swing properly. This can also make problems with appliances as well as cupboards. Also, it creates unevenness where the room connect.
One remedy is putting the new floorboards in 90 degrees to the old one or using secret nailing to fix the new flooring, but the best solution is that you remove the old flooring and repair subfloor before beginning to install the new ones.