How to finish wood floor at saddle board?

Hello all, I am in the process of installing solid wood floor on Elastillon underlay (special stuff for solid). My question is what is the best way to finish it off around the saddle board at the door between the two rooms?

Should I just work around the board and hide the expansion gap with some sort of beading?

Or (what I think), should I remove the board and take the new floor right up to the line dividing the two rooms and put the board (or a new modern type) back down to hide the gap?

At the moment the two rooms coming off the room are carpet and lino, over the winter they will become wood & ceramic tiled.

go in to brooks, woodies,atlantic and ask for a descender or ascender they will know what you are talking about some people call them reducers, there is a pic of one on this site at fig 8.

http://hometips.com/articles/woodfloor.html

Lift the saddle board and allow the flooring to meet the floor from the other room, and then replace saddle again. The saddle board may need to be slightly rebated on one side if the two floors are slightly different heights.

Thanks for the help, much appreciated.

Hey Bigdaddy,

How are you finding fitting it with the Elastillon? I might be doing this soon and would be interested to hear how you're getting on and how much it costs per sq yd.

Thanks

I will only be starting to lay it at the weekend, I will let you know how I get on.

Have you seen the elastillon website? They have a 5-6 minute video presentation giving info and installation instructions. Seems like a great solution. Brooks actually recommend that their solid floors be laid with it.

I'm just delighted that I don't have to screw down batons or sheets, too much work and IMO the floor would be too high then. I think it costed 10euro/sqyd in brooks.

Excellent, thanks.

Did a bit of looking around and elastilon does seem to be a very good option when fitting solid wood over concrete. Will save me the height and hassle of laying 3/4" ply and nailing. What thickness do Brooks have - 3mm?

Not sure, I just took what I was given. It's just the standard stuff which I think is 3mm.

why dont you turn your last board into saddle board by planning the edge off it at about a 30 degrees ,it will give a much better finish,
ps good luck with the elastillion ,once you get the first few rows down the rest of the floor will fly down
good luck

Hey the_chippie - I'm assuming you're a carpenter and don't work in a chipper ? Had a lad out yesterday to measure up my floors (28 sq yds) for glueing the solid acacia directly to the concrete. I'd arranged for him to come out before I heard of elastilon and I doubt I'll go with him as the price will probably be towards a grand and I'm not convinced glueing directly to the concrete is good (expansion problems plus very hard to replace it).

I asked him about elastilon and he said 'that stuff is a joke, I honestly can't understand how they can get away with selling that stuff', but when I asked for specific problems he could only muster 'listen, you just don't float solid wood, it's a bad idea'. Seemed like a classic case of 'it sounds different so it must be muck' without knowing the details.

I'm well aware of the problems of floating solid wood, but based on the web searches I've done, it seems like elastilon addresses these as the whole board is glued to the underlay and the underlay expands and contracts as necessary to keep the correct pressure across the boards to keep them together.

Would love to hear from a pro who has actually used Elastilon: good to hear it is a quick method but what are your thoughts on its performance once it is laid (any callbacks)?

I reckon I'll either lay 3/4" ply and nail into it or use elastilon - either one will save me the labour of this guy glueing it to the concrete, and I think both are better methods than the direct glueing. Would be interested to hear your thoughts. Nice one.

I'd second OhPinchy- I'd love to hear feedback on Elastilon as well. Most of the solid wood floors I see going down in apartments and the like are floated and I'm not familiar with Elastilon. Really wouldn't like the idea of glueing direct to concrete..

i,ve used it on a few jobs and done the jobs in half the time .everything you said about it is spot on and is very hard to find any faults with it! the only tricky bit to it is getting your first few rows down , once you get passed your 3rd row the plastic is a lot more easier to pull from underneat the floorboards and the rest of the will just fly down .the only thing is poeple get scared off by the price of it, but when you do the maths of it ,it only costs about 4-6 euros more a syqd to the price of o.s.b board and ply wood (osb is roughly about 21-24 euro a sheet , cheapest ply wood is anything from 25 euro and up ,8x4 sheet is covering about 3.5 syqds) as for call-backs ,i ve never had a call-backs with it or with any of the floors i,ve done bar one ,it was a beech floor as their is too much movement in beech as it expands in any direction .
i now price all my solid floors with a option of both the plywood base and with elastilon ,some poeple have not heard too much about and just too afraid to go with,in a year or two i can see alot more solids being this way.
regards the chippie
ps. if you are having trouble starting with it pm for my number and i could explain it better on the phone .

Well, got most of one room done on Sat. It's very easy to use and the results are excellent so far. I suppose the full picture will only become apparent over time but I'm very confident that it will be a sound floor.

My advise would be- if you want a solid wood floor (on concrete without raising the floor too much) and you're a reasonable DIYer (i.e. you could comfortably float a laminate or semi-solid floor), go for it!

Much appreciated the_chippie and bigdaddy, reckon I'm going to go with the elastilon.

Just how level does the floor need to be - am I right in thinking a bump of a mm here and there would be taken out by the elastilon? I might go with 5mm if they do it, though the floor is actually fairly level.

The express anchors used to nail down the plywood to the concrete is also a not insignificant cost - I tend to use more rather than less to make sure it's never going to give.