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Flooring Tips

Preparation For New Coverings
Outbuilding Flooring
Carpets
Tile
Linoleum
Wood Floors
Squeaky Floors
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Preparation For New Coverings

Subfloors

What do I need to know about putting a subfloor over an old floor before putting down new tile in the bathroom and kitchen and carpet in the other rooms?
The total thickness of subfloor and underlayment under tile should be at least 1 1/8 inch thick. The material under tile should be exterior grade plywood CDX or better. However, tile backer board is best, especially in the bathroom, (it is unaffected by water). It is also more rigid and made for under tile flooring.
Under your carpets you can get away with plywood or even particle board. Plywood being ,(but more expensive).

Squeaks

Are you about to install a new carpeting, or vinyl floor covering? Make sure you fix all squeaky areas while you have a chance! Drive deck screws through the subfloor and into the joists to anchor everything securely.


Outbuilding Flooring

Concrete vs. Wood

I am building an outbuilding for general storage and to park my farm tractor in during the winter I plan to use 3/4" CDX for floor that will be supported by 4" x 4" runners centered on 12", with 2" X 4" joists also centered on 12". Do you feel this is sufficient to carry the weight?
Considering the price of 3/4" pt. lumber and plywood these days, you would come away MUCH cheaper pouring concrete and putting the rest of your money to better use.
The slab, even if you pay to have poured and do none of the forming work yourself, will be probably half of what the wood will cost.
The one reason for going with wood versus concrete is taxes, that is, how the building will be taxed. That is something to look into.


Carpets

Carpet Repairs

Indentations can be removed from your carpet by laying a damp towel over the depression and pressing down with an iron. After the towel dries, the indentation should be gone!

Carpet Pads

The major purpose of a carpet pad is to absorb shock from foot traffic and to help the carpet resist any matting or crushing. Thinner, denser pads are actually better than thick, bouncy ones. Carpet pads will feel more comfortable and make your carpet last longer.

Automatic Door Sweep

Many rooms have carpeting now-a-days resulting in doors to have some necessary clearance to open and close properly. This opening under the doors can cost some loss in house heat in the winter months. Try installing a door sweep, it works by lifting up whenever the door is closed, thereby keeping much warm air in and cool air out!

Removing old carpet

I find if you cut the carpet in about 4 ft widths and roll each section up and discard. When you get to the edges you don't have all that weight and it comes away from the tack strip rather easily. Of course you can't use the carpet for anything else.
Our thanks to: Beverly M. Hill for that tip.



Tile

Cutting

When needing to trim just 1 or 2 ceramic tiles for a tile repair- don’t bother to rent a tile cutter. Just score the glazed surface with a glass cutter, placing the tile over 2 nails and pushing the sides down for a perfect break.


Linoleum

Leftover Linoleum

What do you do with the leftover pieces of linoleum from your last project? Linoleum works great covering pantry shelves or cupboards. It’s easy to measure and cut and very durable!

Removing Tar From The Floor

At a meat packing plant where we spray tar on the pigs to remove the hair it gets all over the place, several inches deep. Since tar is not a solid but a fluid, the way we used to jack hammer it up was to use dry ice which solidified it long enough to jack hammer it up even on the hottest of days.
This trick might work for the guy who was asking about it on his floors. Dry ice is easily obtained and is easy to work with. Drop some on the tar wait a few seconds for the tar to "set" and he/she should be able to just scrape it off.
White oil was used to remove it(tar) from our skin.

Floor Removal

I noticed you had many questions regarding old vinyl floors. What worked for me was the use of a heat gun. It was a slow messy job, and one has to be careful of the fumes, but it did do the job.

Filling A Gouge In

I tried something already created...Went to Home Depot and got the Almond Kitchen and Sink caulk in a tube and squirted a little in my hand. Since the most of the color in the vinyl is a lighter green I used a little food coloring and kept rolling it til I got my color.
It worked...still see the gouge but it looks better than the white!



Wood Floors

Scratched Floors

To end annoying scratches on chair legs and rungs of rockers on your floors, coat the bottoms of the chairlegs and the length of the undersides of the rocker-rungs with a double coating of one inch masking tape. The tape will not show and will keep the furniture from marring your lovely wood floors.
Casters may also be used. (Try coating the rolling part of the caster with making tape.)

Squeaky Floors

Product To Purchase

I found a product which will work for squeeky floors on the following url: http://www.worksavers.com/squeek.html





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