But aesthetics matter and that means you should stagger the joints while laying out your flooring.
How to lay wood flooring staggard seams.
Put the first board up against the mason s line with the groove side facing away from the walls.
One way to do this is to maintain a minimum distance between adjacent end joints of at least 6 inches.
Its end should be at least 6 to 8 inches apart from the closest seam in row one.
Ensure you maintain a minimum length for end boards.
To start row 3 cut a full width plank to the length of the trimmed ripped piece at the end of row 1.
How you arrange these planks in size is up to you and the result has little effect on the functionality of the floor.
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Separate them by length so you can grab different lengths each time.
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Another way is to avoid regular stagger patterns such as steps or lightning and h patterns.
When laying out the boards keep in mind to never have the ends of boards in adjacent rows line up with each other.
That s what you re after.
Some wood flooring comes with several lengths in the same package to help you stagger the seams.
For row two score and snap the first plank in half.
This will stagger the seams between the adjacent rows in a random way.
Use 1 2 inch spacers to assist in maintaining the 1 2 inch expansion gap between the first row of flooring planks and the wall.
Most hardwood floors consist of many individual planks or boards measuring differing lengths but having the same width.
Even with proper connections.
You can print this out and follow it whilst laying laminate flooring.
The national wood flooring association recommends maintaining randomness when staggering floor planks.
As a rule you never want the seams of adjacent boards to be less than 8 inches apart i.
The rule of thumb that professional flooring installers follow is to stagger the end joint of adjacent rows by a distance equal to 2 or 3 times the width of the plank.
That makes 6 inches the most common minimum spacing for 2 and 3 inch hardwood boards but laminate planks are typically wider than this.
Keep the lengths random and at least 6 in length.