Here's a real doozy to light up the forum, has anyone laid any tongue and groove flooring and not bothered to glue it together? If so, any regrets? I tried desperately to find some flooring to match an existing click-fit engineered wood flooring, but the closest I could find was tongue and groove only. Test laying a few boards without gluing them, I fancy they would stay in place once the whole floor is laid together, but I don't want to have to re-lay the flooring and redo the skirting board over the top if I'm wrong... Reason I want to avoid gluing is primarily cos I hate making something use-once if I could possibly make it reusable.
Did my hall an lounge, no glue no problems at all been down a good six years at least just overlap them like you would with bricks an no problems
The thought process with not gluing is reasonable imo, just make sure to leave some room for expansion/contraction at the extremes of the floor. Have the extra void covered by trim at the edges, it should cover the necessary void(for Pergo flooring, it was 1/4"). It does add some more dimensions to consider that can be a bit overwhelming at first, but if it's not your first rodeo then you will be familiar with this. I've seen "floating" systems that didn't account for that. They put screws (IN FULL VIEW) through the flooring to flatten it after it buckled. Seasons change and so does humidity. I've installed a few Pergo systems in a similar fashion(similar mechanical fastening with one another, but more absorbent material).
My parents just changed the flooring I put down for them over ten years ago, without glue. No problems report at all in that time. If you're going to glue the joints, you're probably just as well gluing the boards down.
In my days as a joiner I never used glue on tongue and groove or saw it being used. Tacked/nailed correctly is all you need.
It all depends on humidity. If you don't do it and the floor starts to expand and contract it will pull itself apart. It's supposed to be a floating floor with gaps left around the walls (or hidden under skirting) so that it can move. I fitted one too tightly out in the states and came in one day and there was a huge bubble right in the middle of it lmao.
yeah im pretty sure you need to leave at least a 5mm gap at the edges to allow for movement otherwise you're right it could make a bulge somewhere.
It's not just that. If you have a kid running around in trainers with decent grip and he stops suddenly the floor will pull apart. Personally I would always glue it unless it was a room that never got used.
Absolute nightmare to get up if you need to go under the floorboards for any reason I would have thought.. Are we talking main flooring or this horrible laminate stuff so beloved by inconsiderate neighbours? This gluing has got to be a modern idea as I said I have never glued a floor down nor seen anyone else do it in all my years as a Joiner
I had a house this happened at. The 'kids' even left basketball marks in the drywall. I've glued pergo since that event. You only want to use a few drops along the seam, though. For proper hardwoods the floor glue is usually enough. I've had to pull that too, (flooding,) and a layer of concrete usually comes with it.
Well, the initial response I got inspired me to take the leap and go ahead and not glue it: I have to say I am a bit nervous about it, and seeing the latter replies in this thread doesn't make me feel any easier about it, but we'll see how it goes. If the worst comes to the worst then I'll just have to take the skirting board off (not fitted yet) and make the necessary adjustments. I have to say, tongue and groove is a real pain in the arse, cos whether I'd have used glue or not, it wouldn't have stopped the boards moving while I was laying it, not unless I waited for the glue to dry in between laying each and every board. Pro-tip: if you're going to lay this sort of flooring, use click-fit every time - clicks in easily and then never moves out. For info, I did leave an expansion gap, and this is laid over an underfloor heating mat.
I have mostly click-fit, which is placed "floating" as stated above. underneath that however, the builders put a leveling layer that's glued together, but also floating. In the attic, there were originally tongue and groove floorboards, where every board itself was screwed to the carrying beams (its an old wooden lattice girder house) but the boards had some expansion room in the tongue and groove. It creaked horribly and the builder adviced the following: a solid layer of tongue and groove OSB-boards, glued together (for water/vapour tightness) and screwed right into the carrying beams. To my own surprise, so far it worked. a 40 m² solid slab of wood screwed into the beams with 1000+ screws and nothing warped yet (it's been in two winters and one hot summer so far.) I mean, somethings got to expand/contract there, as nothing tore apart so far, i suppose the beams and flooring expand at approximately the same rate.
