Methods of Hardwood Flooring Installation, Part I: The Nail Down

There are few ways how a person can install his hardwood flooring. Before choosing the hardwood flooring installation method, the installer needs to check the subfloor. If subfloor is concrete for example, then a glue down or floating installation of hardwood flooring would be good. If subfloor is plywood, a nail down installation would be a good choice of method.

​The nail down installation
This type of method is used primarily when installing a solid wood floor. This option requires that your home have either plywood or wafer board/OSB on the sub-floor. The name says it all. Nailing gives you a deck-like style floor. Generally speaking, whether you opt for a glued or nailed floor is a matter of personal preference, except for the rare cases when the wood type requires nailing rather than gluing. Using nails to fasten down the flooring is advisable in the case of hardwood with thickness of about 3/4 of an inch. Getting the flooring stapled down in place is just another type of nailing. The advantage of having your floor stapled down is the process is easier and much quicker and is vastly preferred.