Laying wooden floor technology with lags (video)

With a large number of modern, beautiful and resistant materials, of which floors are currently being constructed, the demand for wooden floors does not disappear, but at least remains at the same level. Wood - a natural, environmentally friendly natural material - continues to attract human attention with its remarkable structure and unique wood patterns, its elasticity, rigidity and adaptability in processing. Therefore, laying a wooden floor is a sign of a modern approach to the design of rooms.

In order for the wooden floor in the house to please the owners, it must be done correctly.

The technology of laying such a floor, taking into account all the features of the structure in which the installation is planned, will allow you to correctly and efficiently carry out your plans.

Applied floorboards and methods of their installation

Differences of floorboards

Boards for flooring differ in the material from which they are made and in the method of their production. The wood from which domestic boards are made for the installation of floorboards is used mostly from coniferous trees, less often oak, beech or ash is used.

The main floorboard used in domestic construction is the so-called “solid” board, that is, made from the material of some suitable wood. However, taking into account all the shortcomings of the “massive” boards, among which, first of all, the fear of the influence of biological factors and moisture, the modern technologies made it possible to get a new type of material for floorboards - glued floorboards. They have the virtues of "classics", but due to technological processing they received protection from the main damaging factors.

Another type of material intended for flooring is a parquet board, which has a ready-made top working layer, visually similar to the pattern of parquet.
Special face treatment of floorboards forms mounting elements on the long edges of future floorboards — the grooves and the grooves corresponding to them. Sheet pads when connecting the floorboards tightly into the grooves, creating the necessary coverage.

The technologies of laying wooden floor differ in the type of underlying surface (structure) and, accordingly, the thickness of the flooring.

Technologies of laying wooden floors

Currently, there are two ways of laying wooden floors: “parquet” and laying with the creation of an additional base frame of wooden bars (log).

The first technology of laying wooden floor is based on the installation of floorboards on a finished flat underlying surface made of plywood or particle board (chipboard), protected from moisture. With this principle, the device wooden floor is enough to use a floorboard with a thickness of not more than 25 mm. Thus, taking into account all the layers of this covering, the height of the mounted floor will not exceed 40 mm. This method will be very popular if the room is rather low ceilings.

The second and most used method of installation is laying the floor on the logs. Lags - wooden bars, the cross section of which is determined depending on the size of the room, the thickness of the floorboards and the distance between the lags, called their step. They are placed, as a rule, directly on concrete couplers, to which, after adjustment in place and height, they are rigidly fixed. Lags are located across the floorboards, which are usually recommended to be laid in the direction of sunlight.

The technology of laying wooden floor on logs is critical to the height of the room in which the floor is planned. The height of the room becomes smaller by the height of the floor covering, which is made up of the size of the log (from 100 to 150 mm) and the thickness of the floorboard, which is usually chosen from 35 to 40 mm.

Nevertheless, the method of laying the floor on the logs is very attractive because it allows leveling the existing differences in floor screeds, and in the space between the floorboards and the screed, if necessary, install moisture-proof, soundproofing and heat-insulating materials and skip engineering wires in it room networks.

Recommendations for laying wooden floors on logs

Preparing materials and rooms

In a room that is being prepared for a wooden floor, all construction work including plastering, painting and laying should be completed tiles. The repaired and finished surfaces must be dried so that the relative humidity in the desired room does not exceed 60%.After that, an examination is carried out of the existing concrete screed for cracks and other damage that should be repaired, followed by complete drying of the surface.

The materials necessary for the construction of a wooden floor, namely: batten and parallel bars - logs, should be carefully monitored for quality and grade when purchasing. Products of the highest and first grade should not contain more than 12% moisture in their composition, their surfaces should not have deviations from geometric dimensions, signs of damage, dropped knots, as well as a variety of spots on the surface. Wet wood should be discarded immediately.

Floorboards with grooves and a trapezoid tongue are recommended to acquire a maximum length of 6000 mm in order to cut them already at the place of installation. Boards with a rectangular configuration of the combination of groove-tongue joint elements are recommended to be purchased with a length of no more than 3000 mm, since with such elements a tight connection of longer floorboards can cause difficulties.

The optimum thickness of the floorboard is from 35 to 40 mm. It is recommended to acquire it for laying with a stock which size can reach 15% of the total area of ​​the planned floor.

For the creation of a lag, it is desirable to acquire the blanks by the length corresponding to the width of the room in which they will be mounted. It is believed that it is better to saw off the excess than to splice the bearing bar.
The cross-section of the purchased timber should be determined on the basis of the parameters of the future floor. For example, for a room with a width of 3000 mm, for floorboards 40 mm thick, you can use logs with a section of 50x100 mm, with a pitch of 500-550 mm. It is believed that the lag section corresponds to the expression: the width (base) of the beam is 1.5-2 times its height.

Criteria for the acquisition of timber are the same as for the floorboard: the moisture content of wood is within the normal range in the absence of violations of the surface geometry.

Purchased wood must be stored in a room prepared for floor installation and kept in it for 3 to 7 days.

Placement and installation of the lag

Lags are the basis of the whole structure of a wooden floor. From the correctness of their location and installation depends on the further condition of the floor, which they will hold, so all the work on their installation must be done very carefully. It should be noted that lags must necessarily be treated with an antiseptic.

Before laying the lag screed (or at least the place of the future location of the lag) is covered with plastic wrap, which is used for waterproofing. This is especially true for the floors of the first floor. Recently, for this purpose, the material began to use polystyrene foam PES, which, being versatile, protects against moisture penetration and refers to sound-insulating coatings. Canvases of this material can be glued together or joined with tape.

First, they place extreme lags located at opposite walls of a room at a distance of no more than 50 mm from them. Their ends should not reach the corresponding walls by 15–20 mm. Intermediate lags are set in parallel, in increments of 500 - 550 mm, after the first two lags are adjusted in height and level.

It is recommended to set the level and the height of the lag using a laser or water level, and if they are absent, a bubble level should be used. Extreme lags, fully exposed in level and height, will be markers, with the help of threads stretched between them.
Lags are fastened to the coupler with anchor bolts, at a distance of about 500 mm.
To facilitate these works, you can use special adjustable lags on the screws, by turning which you can easily set the required dimensions.

Laying floorboards

Before laying boards it is recommended to apply clearly visible marks on the walls corresponding to the longitudinal axes of the lag.

The first board is laid out on the logs to the wall with a tongue, leaving a gap of about 15 mm between itself and the wall on the long side and about the same on the ends. It is attached to the logs with screws, which are screwed as close as possible to the edge of the board from the side of the wall. This is done so that their caps are subsequently closed with a plinth. From the side of the groove, the board is attached to each timber with self-tapping screws, which are screwed at an angle of 45 ° into the lower corner of the board groove. Moreover, in order that the edges of the board do not break from this, it is recommended to pre-make a through hole in the board under the diameter of the screw, and drill out the upper part of this hole under its “cap”. Self-tapping screws for fixing floorboards are recommended to be used in such a length that at least half of it is included in log wood.

When laying the next board, the density of the connection with the previous one can be achieved by tapping a scull on the edge of the board, but only through a wooden bar.

If the connection density is not achieved due to a slight deformation of the floorboard, then practitioners recommend using clamping clamps for finishing the connection, followed by fixing the board position with self-tapping screws.

Some complexity is the laying of the last board in the canvas, as it does not usually completely fit in the remaining space from the last floorboard to the wall. In such a situation it is recommended to shorten the board to the required width, and its edge should be cut at an acute angle to facilitate installation.
This floorboard is fixed with screws along the edge, under the plinth, similar to the first board.

Laying such a floor is a painstaking, long-term job. But having spent the necessary time on it and having done everything correctly, you can get a beautiful and warm floor, which will surely last more than a dozen years.