One more question on flooring

[djkert]

I was looking through a book on installing flooring and noticed they recommend filling in nail holes and the butts of the plywood with floor patch or floor leveler. Is this necessary? I just bought some and it says it takes 24 hrs to dry. Certainly that would throw off my plans of having the room done this weekend. So do I really need to fill in the nail holes and plywood joints and if so, do I need to let it dry, or can I just wait an hour or so.

thanks.
Dennis

[mschrank]

IMO this would be overkill and a waste of time in preparation for laying down your bamboo flooring.

I recently put down hardwood flooring (at 3/4", a bit thicker than yours), and my subfloor was a real mess. It looks like the original builders used the forms from the foundation for the subfloor, and there we several 1/2" holes at regular intervals.

Now that the floor is down, there are a couple areas where there were some soft spots I wish i had repaired, but I really can't see how a few nail holes and small gaps in the sub-floor butt joints have affected the installation.

[djkert]

thanks. It sounded like overkill to me also.

Just to confirm some stuff, I'd like to run my plan by you guys and make sure it is OK.

Install Rosin paper with 1/2 staples (the staples won't protrude from the floor and interfere with the flooring, will it?)

use a straight finish nailer (16g 1-1/2") to face nail the first row and angle nail the first couple rows till I can use the flooring nailer.

1 1/2" staples (for .6" floor) with my nailer (or should I just use 1 1/2" or 2" nails?)

[djkert]

OK. I did some testing, and to answer my own questions.

The Pneumatic stapler went right through the rosin paper. So I going to have to use a cheap air stapler and hammer the staples in after. Hopefully this wont make the surface uneven underneath the flooring.

I am going to use 2" angled nails around the walls where the nailer wont fit.

I also decided to just use 2" nails instead of staples as my testing went well with the nails and I didn't feel like trying the 1-1/2" staples.

We'll see how it goes tomorrow!!

[Jan]

You can use a hammer tacker to put down the rosin paper. It's a stapler that you swing like a hammer. Any big box and most hardware stores sell them.

You can start with your stick nailer but staple the field with a floor stapler and 1 1/2" staples. 2" staples will just stick through the subfloor. Flooring staples will hold your floor tighter than anything else.

Unless the gaps between the sheets of plywood in the subfloor are unusually large filling them sounds like a bad idea. The plywood needs a little room to move with humidity changes. I've had to sand down ridges along the edges of plywood subfloors that were fitted too tightly.