Hardwood flooring

[Wally & Debbie]

I'm in the very early process of removing carpeting and tile. with plans to replace with 3/4" T&G hardwood. Anyone out there been through this process. I plan to prefinish the planks then nail and glue down. It's going to be tricky under the front slide area. If you have any advice, do's dont's I would appreciate hearing your comments

[rmmpe]

I plan to replace the carpet also. But, as the carpet under the slide is in pretty good shape and the slide works well, I'll trim around it and install the flooring everywhere else.

[Ernie Ekberg]

I install wood flooring and depending what is under your floor dictates if you can nail the wood. The best material is the engineered wood. This is a piece of real wood glued over various layers of plywood. This makes for a very stable floor. 3/4 material- the full thickness of wood has a tendency to cup on the edges. Ernie

[Algoma]

There is an extensive discussion on this in the Winnebago Forum.

[Mike & Nancy]

Wally.....Follow Ernie's suggestion or better yet contact him on wood flooring install. He just installed a beautiful wood floor in my friends Bluebird....he knows what he is doing and has alot of experience in wood floors. I believe he has a web sight thru YAHOO that has lots of pictures.

[Wayne R]

We, Installed Pergo 2 years ago in our 4 slide Alpine it still looks like new. I removed the carpet under the coach and the drivers side slide. The Pergo slipped under the slide just fine and we now are able to leave our throw rugs in place when we pull the slides in. We left the tile in the entry area but removed the kitchen tile to the bath area.The flooring is floating and we have had no issues with the install. The worst part of the job was removing the tile.

I really like the Pergo, we travel with a medium size dog and it is so much eaisier to keep the floor clean. If I ever need to replace it I can use the old pieces for patterns.

[Wally & Debbie]

Thanks for the comments!
Bob our carpet and tile are in great shape also, we just really like the look and feel of wood.
Ernie thanks for the reply. I'm also concerned with the movement of the solid wood and was thinking if I presealed the planks top bottom and t/g hoping that might help stabilize it. The coach is stored in side when not in use, keeping the interior temps from wild swings even though the humidity may very from Southern Nevada dry to Northwest damp. The sub floor appears to be a SIP type of panel with 1/2" OSB top and bottom with Styrofoam between. What do you think of using staples through the tongue around the edges and flooring nailer in the field where it fits.Screws and plugging sounds like a lot of work. Do you have a preference on adhesives? Now I'm not totally against the purchase of new engineered flooring its just that we have this beautiful hickory left over from the house and like it!

John thanks I have read through those. Again we are very happy to have an Alpine coach with slides that don't contact the floor. What ever WRV used as primer and adhesive for the tile is holding very strong its removing a layer of OSB with it. The quality of this little orphan is impressive!

Wayne we agree with the ease of cleaning the wood floor. Me and the dog don't always wipe our feet proper, however my gorgeous wife is very tolerant of our misdeeds.

[OldForester]

In my last job before I retired four years ago I was responsible for manufacturing and selling the OSB (called "Structurwood", made by Weyerhaeuser) that ended up in WRV subfloors - both Alpenlite and Alpine Coach. It was engineered and designed for RV floors and sold to them in 8' by 24' and 8' by 12' panels. It will hold up to a lot of abuse and re-flooring, as long as you don't let water leaks procrastinate and create a damp floor for months. Should be no problem pulling the old tile and nails/staples where they occur and re-flooring. You will probably need to sand the sub floor to make sure it's level after you pull the tile and carpet off, before you install the new flooring.

I was also participated in Weyerhaeuser's entry into growing Eucalytpus Grandis for hardwood flooring and cabinet lumber, in Uruguay and Southern Brazil, and led the hardwood lumber division of that company, where we made lots of woods for flooring, for several years. I have installed 1800 sq ft of new Eucalyptus Grandis flooring (trade name "Lyptus") in our new home, and it's beautiful. I would think the only problem in a motorhome would be the slides, and if you can clear those, there's no problem with 3/4" flooring in most species as long as you get the moisture down to 10% or so in both the flooring and the motorhome before you install it. It's important to put the flooring in the coach and final dry both the sub floor and the coach to the same low humidity at the same time -- may take you a week or so. Use the furnace if you need to; just get them both dry down in to that 10% range as verified by a wood moisture meter, glue, and nail with a flooring staple gun as you suggested to get the pressure and the angle you need on the fastener. Then sand and put a very durable finish, like a couple coats Synteko on with a foam roller at an even, thin spread rate; practice on some scrap lumber first. Synteko is high in Urethane, rather than Polyurethane and when it's hard, is very durable. Let the Synteko harden up over several weeks after it's dry (e.g., walk on it with socks and make sure your pet has booties or something to walk on that won't scratch the floor). Once hardened over a few weeks or a month, Synteko is about the hardest finish you can apply to unfinished flooring. it's what we used in our home so it can take wheelchairs and other abrasive traffic.

Those are the main things - low wood moisture content in both the flooring and the subfloor, good fastening, hard finish; and cupping won't be a big issue.

I don't have a suggestion on the adhesive to use, but a flooring supply company like Kelly-Goodwin (Kelly Goodwin) should be able to give you suggestions on the adhesive. If you rip up a lot of Structurwood pulling the tiles, you may need to aggressively sand it it and add a layer of 1/4 or 3/16 inch MDF to get a level surface for the flooring, but I don't think you will remove that much.

I would recommend 3/4" flooring over the engineered flooring because you have so much more thickness you can sand to take care of uneven or level spots, and you can re-sand it later to refinish without worrying about sanding through the veneer layer on the engineered flooring.

[Wally & Debbie]

Thank you Oldforester
Your comments are appreciated. So far the thickest wood removal has been ~1/8" but mostly 1/16th or less. I will sand off the big fuzzies. I'll look for Synteko locally, sounds like what I want. The Hickory and Alpine share the RV garage so should be about the same moisture level however I have not checked, but I will.