Laying a Pine Floor for Dummies

heart pine flooring

It probably won't surprise our readers that some of the "contributors" to the eHow.com family of websites weren't all that familiar with the topic they they were talking about. Nonetheless, some of them were capable enough researchers – and had sufficient pride in their work – that they managed to find useful information, synthesize the answer, and plug it into the format required by DMS¹, the sites' owner. Sometimes, though. it just looks like they've done a good job. Such is the problem with our nominee today, C. O. Ryan, an SFGate.com post titled "How to Lay a Real Pine Wood Floor."

To her credit, Ryan found herself a couple of useful references. Her problem was that she didn't know enough about the process of laying a floor to realize that she was mixing conflicting information from the two sources. Here's an example:

"Choose the grade of pine you will be using. Pine wood is classed in a range from no knots to large knots. Many craftspeople recommend the standard 8-foot-long pine plank, measuring 1 inch by 6 inches in "No. 1" or "No. 2" grade. Choose tongue-and-groove edges as these are easy to put down and the nails won’t show."

We think that the notion that, "Many craftspeople recommend the standard 8-foot-long pine plank" conflicts with Ryan's suggestion to, "Choose tongue-and-groove edges." T&G is not a "standard... plank..."

Next comes the idea of layout. Ryan says to,

"Pull a taut string across the floor, along longest wall of the room, and chalk mark that line. Lay the boards perpendicular to the floor joists..."

What if the longest wall isn't perpendicular to the joists? And how to you "chalk mark [a] line"? Or how about this mishmash for nailing the pine planks down?

'Use the flooring nailer only after doing the first few boards by hand. Continue to tap each row into place, nailing with a flooring stapler. Nail the boards in place with cut nails every 2 feet."

OK, which is it: a flooring nailer, a flooring stapler, or cut nails? In reality, the cut nails were used to keep extra-wide 10-inch flooring from cupping (and for decoration), not for the 1-by-6 planks Ryan specified. Oh, and nailing "every two feet" won't hit the joists...
Ryan also said nothing about staggering joints or how to butt planks on joists. Instead, she waxed poetic about flexible glue and oil finishes; suggesting that our Dumbass of the Day had pretty much no idea what she was talking about.

We aren't surprised. You?

¹ DMS was Demand Media Studios, which renamed itself Leaf group. We like to call it DMS, though, because you can't spell "dumbass" without "DMS"!

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