Stapling Hardwood Floors for Dummies

Solid hardwood vs. engineered wood

Our staffers have learned, sometimes the hard way, that they really should read a potential DotD nominee in its entirety before passing on it. Lots of these freelancers "front-load" their posts with useful, even "correctish" information, then pad out the other end with utter bushwa. In the case of Jack Ori and his HomeSteady.com post, "The Length of Staples for 3/4-inch Hardwood Floors," that's pretty much the case: some correct (or nearly so) information followed by total crapola.

Ori (also known as Stephanie Silberstein) has graced these pages six times previously, usually blowing it on STEM topics. This time, Jack was... sort of... correct when he started, although it's pretty apparent from his introduction that he wasn't all that familiar with installing flooring:

"You can install hardwood floors with nails, staples or glue. When you use staples, you first have to install all subfloor materials using brads; you can then staple the hardwood floor to the subfloor."

Based on the bit about brads, Ori's apparently confusing installing the subfloor with small, headless nails vs. using a crew who are all named Bradley. Be that as it may, he's right about the needing a subfloor bit and about "nails, staples or glue." He gets a little off track again with this passage:

"You need longer staples if the floor is supported by wood joists or by more than one layer of plywood."

Actually, you can use longer staples, not "you need" them. But we guess that's only a little off track. Where Jack's instructions really get weird is when he starts trying to tell his readers how to lay the flooring, based on one of his references:

"After you set the first layer of flooring, nail brads into the floor, spaced 8 inches apart. Then 'toenail' 1 1/2-inch brads by attaching them at 45-degree angles every 4 inches and place the next layer of flooring."

First off, he didn't mention that the toenail "attaching" process is supposed to be through the tongue of the flooring. Oops. Second, would that Jack had understood the difference between engineered wood – which is the subject of those instructions – and hardwood. Apparently, however, he didn't. In reality, hardwood flooring (as opposed to engineered flooring) should be fastened at 6-10" intervals depending on the width of the flooring (wider planks require more closely-spaced nails).
Finally, Jack's complete lack of familiarity with laying hardwood floors is placed on display for all to see:

"Once you've installed all layers of flooring, use a pneumatic staple gun to staple the top layer of flooring to the subflooring."

Just WTF does our Dumbass of the Day mean by that step, anyway?

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