Installing Kempass on pine floorboards

Hi:

I've been reading your posts. I'm very impressed with your generosity sharing your knowledge not by being after a sale.
I wish I had seen this forum (DIYnot) and your website before I bought the wood for a renovation I have underway.

I bought several months ago Elka/Kempass solid wood floor about 18mm thick. It has been seasoning for months in each of the rooms.
I want to use plywood over the current pine floorboards. I am thinking of using 6mm plywood and Elastilon on all the rooms of the first floor. None of the rooms are larger or wider than 3.5m but I intend to have uniform transitions between the rooms (no splitting of areas)

I've searched for plywood and have found different types. Which plywood
would you recommend. (Would you have plywood to sell for flooring purposes?)

I am planning to screw the plywood onto the current boards (don't want to use nails- far tooo permanent to my perception and too messy to remove if one happens to need to do any plumbing rework). I am wondering about gaps between the plywood sheets and overall gaps between the plywood and the walls.

By the way, would you have Elka/Kempass hardwood for sale? I will need for the ground floor. That is one I didn't buy as I am doing this project in stages.

Many thanks;

Aldo


;-) Thanks for your kind words.

To answer most of your questions:
If possible, check the moist level in the Kempas wood. Normally Oak and other wood-types must be between 8 and 12%, but experience has taught us that with Kempas it's best to be UNDER 9% (we've learned the hard-way ;-)
That's also the reason we don't do solid kempass, but if you want we can source Kempass wood-engineered full-plank for you.

Reading your question, I presume your pine floorboards are not even. If so, 6mm plywood could tackle this if it's not that bad (just slightly cupped, but we would recommend a thicker version minimum 12mm.
If the cupping is not that bad, you could also place strips of thin hardboard in the 'holes' of the floorboards, to prevent a 'bouncing-effect'. An alternative would be OSB boards.

You're right about the screws, we either use them (every 25cm, so still a lot) or staples but then you need a nail/staple gun. It's fine to leave a tiny gap between the plywood boards (wood will always work, but the cross-multi layered construction of the plywood should prevent excessive expansion) and leave a wider gap between the plywood and the walls, like you would with the wood (also handy for 'hiding' cables).
And no, we don't sell plywood, even we go to Wickes, B&Q or local timber yard for that ;-)

Elastilon is a good product, but read the instructions properly, it takes a bit of getting used to, specially the first bit.

Hope this helps, feel free to contact us with further questions, or check our DIY-site