How to Install a Hardwood Floor Without Professional Help

Installing a hardwood floor can be quite difficult, so be prepared! You’ll need two types of saw—a rip and a miter—and you’ll need to be able to cut wood with a high level of precision. If you’re not up to this, you may want to consider having a professional tackle this job. The cost of a hardwood floor can be high, especially if you have to buy materials twice, due to them being ruined by inaccurate cuts or other mishaps.

When you get your hardwood floor, let the boards rest in the room where they’ll be installed for a couple of days. Real wood expands and contracts according to the temperature in the room, so make sure your boards are at the correct temperature before you begin cutting. Don’t be tempted to skip this step, or the day after you’ve laid your lovely floor you may find the wood has expanded or shrunk, causing cracking or buckling.

To begin, cover your clean, bare concrete subfloor with asphalt saturated felt paper, or asphalt laminated paper as an approved vapor and moisture retarder. Roll it out and fix it down beneath your flooring.

You’ll want to install the flooring at right angles to the floor joists. When you’re ready to install the hardwood floor, you can start by simply laying boards in the center of the room with about 8 inches of space between each end and the wall. You cut the remainder of the wood to fit flush with the wall on one side and with about an inch of space between the wall and the hardwood floor on the other. This allows for the wood to expand without pushing into the wall or bowing the hardwood floor.

A hardwood floor may have to be adjusted to accommodate a crooked room. Ideally, the boards should lay parallel to two of the walls. If the room is very irregular, you may have to lay the hardwood floor to accommodate this. Use blind nails to tack down the floor. This technique requires some skill, and is usually better done with a hammer than a nail gun.