Heads up on 5/16" flooring

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willworkforwood

Feeling the Heat
Jan 20, 2009
465
Central Ma
Just passing along something I learned the hard way this past week. We found a good price on some very nice Bellawood 5/16" engineered flooring late in the Summer, and picked up enough to redo the master BR (270 sf). I had promised my better half it would be done before Xmas, to show it off on the holiday gathering. But you know the drill - firewood, car repairs, more firewood, yada, yada, yada. So with 2 weeks remaining, it's time to begin the job. First, find which place to rent the flooring nailer from. Well, it turns out that 5/16" is a special animal, and most standard nailers can't do something that thin (yep, should have checked on that earlier). After many hours of searching our entire region (up to 1 1/2 hour away), I gave up on finding one. Although someone in the area probably had one of the few nailers that works on 5/16", I was running out of time. So, I sucked it up and hand nailed the whole thing - pre-drilling every single blasted nail (hand nailing this stuff without pre-drilling is not happening). Just another 35 hour job from hell. So, if anyone is considering getting 5/16" flooring, the Bellawood is quality stuff and came out looking great. But see if you can find a nailer first, unless you happen to enjoy spending mega hours crawling around on your hands and knees >:-(
 
correct me if I am wrong here but
could you also of glued it down with a flooring mastic??
thought I remembered reading that
 
I believe you are correct, engineered does use mastic. When they were going to do my sister in laws and she said mastic I had to do a search....never heard that before....but that is correct.
 
I believe that if you can find the right material you can shim out the nailer so it will nail thinner materials.
 
Jim H. said:
I believe you are correct, engineered does use mastic. When they were going to do my sister in laws and she said mastic I had to do a search....never heard that before....but that is correct.
Yes, I was aware of the glue option, but also read that thin floor like this should be rolled. I've done tiles with thinset, but never glue with wood, and didn't want to try something new, being under-the-gun. I had experience top-nailing southern yellow pine flooring using old style cut nails, and also had blind-nailed T&G pine on walls. So I knew that nailing was something I could do successfully (and also had a good idea how long it was going to take :-/ ).
 
Jack Straw said:
I believe that if you can find the right material you can shim out the nailer so it will nail thinner materials.
Same as with the glue option - I just didn't want to "experiment" with this very visible floor. I'm sure you're right, and shimming can be made to work, but these tounges and groves have so little material, there isn't any margin for error - they break if you look at them wrong. Home Depot sells a $140 nailer advertised on the tag as working for 5/16", which I was going to buy. But then I read a review by someone who destroyed a bunch of 5/16", and then found out (from the product doc) that it really doesn't go down past 3/8". He figured it was just pilot error, and then was less than pleased to find out that it was incorrectly labeled.
 
I ended up using a pneumatic nailer . . . just angled very carefully . . . when I did my engineered wood floor. I think there were 2 or 3 nails that ended up showing . . . but folks would really have to look for them to find them.
 
firefighterjake said:
I ended up using a pneumatic nailer . . . just angled very carefully . . . when I did my engineered wood floor. I think there were 2 or 3 nails that ended up showing . . . but folks would really have to look for them to find them.

yeah, Bellawood instructions are pretty complete for nailing and gluing. I would not think it that big a deal really. There are also plenty of posts and reviews on Bellwood products on sites like Lumber Liquidators where people chime in on what works for them.
 
willworkforwood said:
unless you happen to enjoy spending mega hours crawling around on your hands and knees >:-(

You should have used a milk crate.

Sorry, sorry, I shouldn't have - but I couldn't help myself. :coolsmirk:
 
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