Lay wooden planks - floorboards made by yourself

• Material and preparation
  • Costs and prices
• Structure of a plank floor
• DIY instructions - laying wooden floorboards
• Tips for quick readers

A natural floorboard made of real wood is today a pleasant change to the many unnatural artificial floor coverings. Above all, however, a wooden floor fits much better to most of the facilities that are nowadays also very much influenced by the country house style. Different types of wood are suitable as flooring. How you can lay the board floor yourself, we show here in the manual.

You often see in old buildings beautiful plank flooring, which indeed have some scratches and joints, but are still partly lying on the ground for over 100 years. Today we have completely different possibilities, so that no or at least much smaller joints in the floorboards arise. Even the less popular creaking of the planks can often be prevented during the laying process. Here we show you how you should design the substructure so that the creaking is barely perceptible. In the DIY tutorial, you will find the steps to lay a floor made of wooden planks yourself.

Material and preparation

You need this:

• Cordless Screwdriver
• drilling machine
• Fine wood drill
• sinker
• table saw
• Japanese saw
• jigsaw
• screwdriver
• Cuttermesser
• rubber hammer
• ruler
• spirit level
• pencil
• wood flooring
• joists
• Angle small
• Slats / construction wood
• screw
• vapor barrier
• duct tape
• Footfall sound insulation / felt mats

Costs and prices

If you pay close attention to a few points, you really do not need a craftsman to lay a plank floor. Even beginners among the do-it-yourselfers can do this job very well with a little patience. Moreover, this is a work that strengthens your self-confidence as a home improvement in the future every day as you walk across the new wooden floor.

• Wooden planks pine 15 mm thick - 200 x 12 cm - from about 9.00 euros per square meter
• Oak planks 15 mm thick - 200 x 13 cm - from about 40.00 euros per square meter
• Wooden planks larch 20 mm thick - 200 x 14.5 cm - from about 15.00 euros per square meter
• Walnut wooden floorboards 20 mm thick - 200 x 14 cm - from about 67.00 euros per square meter

Tip: In the hardware store you will find small moisture meters that cost around ten euros. This allows you to determine the moisture of the wood. Especially if you choose a slightly more expensive type of wood for the floor, this investment is well worth it. The remaining wood moisture should be less than ten percent. If the wood is still wet, it will later dry on your floor and form severe cracks. In addition, this damage then contributes to the creaking of the soil.

The most important point for a stable plank floor is the distance between the bearing timbers and the substructure, so that the wooden planks do not sag over time. For example, the distance between the bearing blocks in the substructure should not exceed 50 centimeters for 21-millimeter planks. Thinner, cheaper planks may need storage wood closer to each other.

• Slats / storage woods - spruce / fir 200 cm long - 28 x 48 mm - piece about 0.90 euros
• Slats / bearing wood - spruce / fir 300 cm long - 28 x 48 mm - piece about 1.35 Euro
• Square timber - spruce / fir 200 cm long - 38 x 58 mm - piece about 1.50 euros
• Squared timber - spruce / fir 300 cm long - 38 x 58 mm - piece about 2.25 euros
• Squared timber - spruce / fir 200 cm long - 58 x 58 mm - piece about 2.40 euros
• Square timber - Spruce / Fir 300 cm long - 58 x 58 mm - piece about 4, 70 Euro

Tip: If you have found particularly high-quality stronger planks somewhere, you can pull apart the distances a bit, but you should not overdo it. The closer the storage lumbers are, the safer and more stable every single plank rests. At the same time, this ensures that the planks do not warp over time and thus creak.

Structure of a plank floor

Here we have listed the reverse construction of the new floor. The structure is always the same for concrete, tiles or old wood panels. Only if there is no load-bearing subfloor, you must install a complete substructure with beams. Incidentally, the impact sound insulation or the felt is introduced only under the bearing timbers.

• concrete floor
• vapor barrier
• Impact sound insulation or felt
• joists
• floorboards

Tip: For DIY enthusiasts, there are often special self-adhesive rubber strips in the hardware stores, some of which are also covered with felt. These tapes have a gelatinous interior, thus preventing noise and creaking when the wood is working. In other markets there is self-adhesive felt tape, which is also slightly stronger and has the same effect.

DIY instructions - laying wooden floorboards

Let the wooden floorboards breathe in the room for a while so that they can acclimatize. This reduces later cracks and shrinkage. If you are still just starting out as a do-it-yourselfer, pine or larch is usually the best choice for the first plank floor. The wood is cheap and so some waste is not a disaster.

1. Arrange meaningful displacement

You will hardly find affordable wooden floorboards that cover the entire room in length. Therefore, you usually have to put the planks somewhere in the room. You will achieve a nice picture if you have thought about this approach even before you bought the planks. For example, if you need to schedule twice, you can rearrange this offset in every other row. This results in a nice uniform pattern.

For example, if a room is 3.90 meters wide and you have wooden planks that are two meters long, the offset is placed exactly in the middle of the room in every other row. In the other row, on the other hand, cut the wood so that there is a complete board in the middle. This form of laying is then referred to as a regular association. A disorderly transfer is called a wild bond.

Tip: In any case, the seams or lugs should always be exactly on top of each other, which looks ugly and like a border in space. In individually bolted wooden planks, this has no effect on the technical side, but it looks easy later, as intended and not.

2. Lay out the vapor barrier

Especially with a concrete floor, a vapor barrier must be laid under the bearing timbers. This is pulled up to the edge over the later ground and glued to the wall. So rising damp can not cause rot in the wood. Later, this foil edge is hidden behind the skirting board.

Tip: Do not place glass wool or mineral wool in the gap between the bearing timbers. Dust falls through the cracks in the floor and when you pull it, you pull mineral wool out again. Allergy sufferers would suffer from this type of insulation.

3. Lay the storage lumber

The storage lumbers are laid on the vapor barrier with a lining made of felt or impact sound. You do not have to screw the bearing wood to the ground. This can even be detrimental because you damage the vapor barrier and the screws could even rust away. To prevent the bearing wood from slipping, you can insert short ends at the correct distance between the individual fields and, if necessary, connect them with the cross-pieces through small angles.

Tip: Use the spirit level to check whether the bearing wood is also exactly straight. If this is not the case, you can feed them with thin wooden tiles. Check not only the individual bearing timbers, but also the entire substructure. Place a long lath or wooden plank over the bearing timbers and then the spirit level.

4. Screw in the first row

The first row of wooden floorboards must be adapted to the unevenness of the wall. Draw the bumps with a pencil and saw them with a jigsaw. Screw this first and the next row from above. If you feel your boards are splitting slightly, you should pre-drill the holes with a fine wood drill bit. It is important to always drill out the holes with a countersink so that no one later tears the feet apart from splinters.

Tip: If you want to lay the wooden planks in a damp room, such as a kitchen or bathroom, then you should use stainless steel screws. Normal screws would rust quickly, which is not only ugly, but also impractical, once a screw has to be tightened.

5. From the third row

From the third row, each plank is screwed diagonally into the spring with the bearing wood. Turn the screws in sufficiently far, otherwise you will not be able to push the next board into the spring. The second last row is then bolted from above and also drilled with a countersink. The last row has to be adapted to the shape of the wall again. This plank is also screwed from above.

Tips for quick readers

• Calculate bearing wood and construction
• Decide and buy the type of wood of the planks
• Measure space and divide floorboard length
• Arrange offset - move seams
• Lay out the vapor barrier and glue it together
• Lay out and align bearing wood
• Underlay bearing woods with felt / impact sound
• first row of plank boards to adapt to wall
• bolt the first two rows from above with bearing beams
• Drill out screw holes beforehand with countersink
• bolt further planks according to the planned laying pattern
• these planks slanted from the front through the spring screw
• also adapt the last hallway to the wall
• screw the last two rows back from the top