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 suboor, 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 signicant expansion
and contraction of the oor.
In a oating installation, the
hardwood oor planks are
attached to each other, but
not the suboor. 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
suboor is not available, such
as on a cured concrete slab.
Glue is also an excellent
sound deadener on wood
suboors 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