Wood Flooring Buyer's Guide

How your ooring will be installed depends upon several factors, two of which are the type of ooring being installed, and the room it is being installed in. There are four
primary installation types available for hardwood ooring: Nail Down installation, Glue Down installation, Floating installation and Interlocking installation. Some installation
methods combine these installation types, depending on the width of the wood planks.
Nail Down
Nail-down installation
attaches the ooring directly
to the wooden suboor, and
is typically used for attaching
solid hardwood ooring, or
engineered plank ooring.
For lighter ooring, such as
some types of engineered
hardwood, staples are used
in lieu of nails. Nail down
installation, of course, cannot
be used on concrete slab
oors.
Floating
Floating installation is
typically performed in
environments where there
will be signicant expansion
and contraction of the oor.
In a oating installation, the
hardwood oor planks are
attached to each other, but
not the suboor. This allows
each piece to uctuate in
size independently, without
warping or buckling the
others.
Glue Down
Glue down installation is
used whenever a wooden
suboor is not available, such
as on a cured concrete slab.
Glue is also an excellent
sound deadener on wood
suboors in multi-family
dwellings, like high-rise
condominiums, where nails
would act more like a sound
conduit and transfer oor
noises to the ceiling below.
Interlocking
Interlocking oors were
designed with the
Do-It-Yourselfer in mind.
Interlocking oors oat,
and each plank interlocks
with the row behind it, so it
can be placed directly over
your old vinyl or tile oor.
Interlocking oors expand
and contract as a unit,
which minimizes localized
warping and buckling of the
oorboards.
Nail Down
Glue Down
Floating
Interlocking
installation types