HARDWOODS INA
HEARTBEAT
Undercut any door jambs or other
trim that might interfere with the
flooring installaion.
If you’re working with floor
boards that all measure a standard length, then I suggest lay-
ing out a “dry run” of planks to
make sure you don’t have a tiny
sliver of flooring at either end of
the room. However, the
Transitions EVO line from BHK is
a flooring system that consists
of floor boards of various precut
lengths. This allows you to
install random lengths to stagger the joints, and you can then
decide which length works best
at the end of each row.
I then assembled the first
three row of planks with the
tongues facing the wall. (The
Transitions EVO planks have two
tongues, one on the side and
one on the end.) I assembled
the first rows a few feet away
from the wall to give myself a little working room. I found that
the planks were easiest to
install by joining the long tongue-and-groove joints first, then following with the shorter joint on
the end. The best method is to
hold the “groove board” flat
while you insert the tongue of
the joining board at an angle.
Then bend the tongue board
downward, which pulls the
tongue into the groove. It helps
to use a hammer and rubber
block to tap the joints securely
in place. I progressed down the
room, assembling the first three
rows together. The random
lengths of the floor boards made
it easy to select a plank that
would offset the joints from row
to row.
Note: An extra worker is
always a huge help during installation, but I had no such luck. If
you’re installing the floor alone, I
suggest using a box of flooring
to weigh down the previously
installed floor boards as you
move down the first three rows.
The weight of the box will hold
them securely to the floor, so
they don’t separate as you
hammer-tap the new planks in
position.
At the ends of the rows, you
might get lucky and have one of
the random lengths fit precisely
into the space against the wall.
More likely, you’ll need to cut
the plank to length, using a
handheld circular saw, table
saw, miter saw or even handsaw.
(To get the most mileage from
my materials, I typically would
use the remainder of the cutoff
piece to begin the next row.)
With the first three rows
assembled, I placed plastic 1/4-
inch spacers against the wall to
allow for expansion, and pushed
the three rows in place against
it. When all locked in place at
the joints, the weight and rigidity
of the combined three rows has
enough structural integrity to
assemble the following rows
without using the box full of
Begin the layout with a dry run of loose
planks to plan your first three rows.
