What is your opinion of this no-nail-down flooring system?
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I intend to install wide-plank oak floors (solid or engineered) in our next house. Matt Risinger did a mini review of the Steller Floor System on his Youtube channel, and I was wondering what the GBA community might think of this product. GBA’s sister site at Fine Home Building has a blurb (https://www.finehomebuilding.com/2019/10/11/floating-hardwood-floor-with-unmatched-advantages), but it’s more advertisement than review.
Matt and the manufacturer highlight the fast install and uninstall advantages of the system. While I think that might be a benefit, I know from past experience that installation is a small percentage of the total install cost. (It was about a dollar a square foot for a prefinished nail down floors on the last home.) I also wonder about the durability of the channels in high-traffic areas–although I suppose you could pull up the flooring and lay down new channels if that became necessary. Similarly, I can’t imagine pulling up the floor for resale ahead of putting in something else.
Thoughts?
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Replies
Steve,
The pvc channels holding the flooring are interesting, but I can't imagine pulling up the floor in advance of a flood. Do they not expect you to trim after the floor is down? Any drink spills that drip down between planks would be trapped in the PVC snap channels, which sugar ants might find attractive. It is not clear from the quick look I took as to how the ends are joined.
The ends of the flooring pictured in the article appear to be solid wood, not engineered wood - aka ply construction. I would be leery of using wide solid lumber if moisture in the subfloor (like a slab) would fluctuate relative to the room moisture. Cupping is my first thought, but perhaps the wood is stabilized in some manner. The normal behavior of boards is to gain width over length with humidity. Table tops are frequently made with breadboard ends which allow for expansion as well as control cupping. A 12-16 foot wide room might present a lot of collective width changes seasonally. A baseboard with shoe might be able to conceal that much movement. I would check their technical sheets to find out what they anticipate.
I have repaired an engineered wide board floor after a dishwasher disaster. The flooring was floated on a radiantly heated slab, which is a condition some solid wood flooring companies won't warrant. There were a total of four layers including the 3/16 top layer, but it basically was a three ply softwood base structure with the exotic layer on top. The kitchen/dining area covered about 300sf and there was no discernible cupping before the dish washer disaster. Even two weeks of leaking under the floor (to be discovered at the end of a vacation trip) didn't really upset the adjacent boards. The ones directly in front of the dishwasher were toast though as the exotic layer debonded. I am not so sure that solid wood wide boards would behave as well. Ends that swell from water tend not to go back to original size when dried out. Some stay fat, some shrink up. Witness the many table leaves and tops that pull themselves apart when set out in barns or basements.
Set on a wood subfloor over a heated space, I might be more of a believer in wide boards. I have, however, pulled up maple strip flooring that did not fair well in a kitchen, so being narrow doesn't always guarantee success. If your planned area for use doesn't include the relatively rough environment of a kitchen or next to sliding doors then it might be worth a closer look.
Steve,
I wouldnt trust youtube personality Rissiiger with much, does he ever post around here? No! That's your answer.
Merry Christmas/Happy Chanukah!
Signed,
Expert member
I just recently put in a click-lock bamboo floor. This product looks similar, but with a plastic joining strip where the bamboo planks had milled latches that interlock with adjacent planks. The issues I had were:
1 - It's a LOT harder to get it to snap into place than they lead you to believe. The planks don't alwasy want to lay flat, and it can be tricky to keep one end snapped in as you work down the plank since you can't really get the entire length of the plank to snap in all at once. With the plastic channel, my biggest concern would be getting it to latch all the way. The little floor contacting part seems to not be under the latch part on the edge, so I think the plastic strip would tend to push away from the plank and not always latch.
2- The floor doesn't always stay flat after latching. I would just step on the seams to get them flat, but I was also nailing them down so not a full floating floor. Once nailed, they stay put.
3- It's really easy to mess up the ends while you're working on getting the edge to latch which results in little gaps between ends of planks and ocassionally cracked corners.
I'm going to use an old school tongue and groove plank for the larger area of full floating floor (over a concrete slab where I can't nail the planks down), which should be easier to keep flat.
Bill
I have Installed one called Stellar Flooring. It was very expensive for a very small part of the house. It was a waste of every penny I paid. Very hard to install, channels break, the flooring itself breaks and so on. I regret so deeply of trusting the Risinger review.