Parquet flooring – preparation of wood
Good morning, everyone.
I´m a hobby woodworker and new to knots. I´m a Brit but permanently living with my girlfriend in Berlin, Germany. We are building a new house just outside Berlin (with custom basement woodshop, but that´s another story). We have decided on solid parquet flooring from Robinia (Black Locust). This wood is one of the undiscovered treasures of Europe (yet another story). The house is, like almost all German houses, solid built, that is poured ferroconcrete cellar and concrete blocks above ground. This means relatively large quantities of water during the building process (I estimate 3 cubic meters) which have to dry out. I intend to allow at least 5 weeks drying time after screeding the floors before introducing the wood. My question (at last) is: how long should the flooring be stacked in the rooms in order to reach the same moisture levels ? The flooring is already milled to finished dimensions and is 22 mm (just under an inch) thick. My estimate would be a minimum of one week, well spread over the floor in small stacks to allow air circulation. Any advice welcome.
Yours, Bill
Replies
Bill,
If it is a new concrete sub-floor, the rule of thumb for drying time of the concrete is a millimetre a day from the time the concrete was covered from the weather. The time will be governed by the thickest element in the slab, so if you have a 300mm drop beam that's 300 days. Then there's the drying time on the screed to consider!
In this instance I'd use an epoxy coating on the concrete before screeding -- Ramset's one is excellent if it's available there.
As to moisture content of the sub-base, the accepted maximum is 75% Relative Humidity -- I've never had any trouble when sticking to that.
At that RH I acclimatised the block for 10 days -- spreading them over the slab a maximum of 2 deep.
If you want a 'How To' for laying parquet, you'll find one here
http://www.iandgilham.com/manuals/parquet.html
Edited 8/4/2002 9:19:09 AM ET by IANDG
Hello Ian
Planning install of block parquetry floor (about 15 sq m) over sand/cement screed and self levelling compound - (ARDIT or similar product) Is this a good idea? Tried to log on to your URL iandgilham.com/manuals/... and got an error message 'Can't find URL on server' . Is the page still there?
Peter
Hi Peter,I've been in the UK for 10 days and during those 10 days my web-hosting service have chosen to alter something -- the site should be back up in the next couple of days.Cement/sand screed is an excellent surface for parquet, as is Ardit self-levelling compound.Check on the moisture content before laying and spread the parquet block out on the floor for 10 days to acclimatise first.Have you used Mapei self-leveller? -- it dries a lot harder than Ardit and levels just a little better.
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